Immune (35 page)

“Beautiful,” Heather said, putting her arm around Jennifer’s shoulder.

Mark grinned broadly. “Gotta hand it to you, Sis. You play a mean keyboard.”

Jennifer smiled at her brother for the first time in weeks, an action that gave Heather a glimmer of hope. Since the government discovery of the Second Ship, the twins had barely spoken to each other. That, combined with Jennifer’s strange new aura of self-confidence, had made her wonder if the estrangement might not become permanent, something that would be nothing less than a tragedy.

Heather’s eyes took in the data scrolling across the display, her savant brain comparing the readouts against the equations the program was intended to model. Good. Better than good.

She nodded. “Looks like it’s ready for a trial run.”

“About time,” Mark said.

He had been chomping at the bit for weeks, desperate to find out more about what Stephenson was up to. Initially Mark had argued they should use the computer and subspace transmitter that was already set up and working, but Heather had talked him out of it. The heavy pattern of access on that system meant that Jack and Janet were on the trail of something important. To use it would have meant disconnecting them, a thought that filled Heather with a deep sense of dread.

“You have a coordinate for me?” Jennifer asked.

Mark recited the coordinates for the L-shaped Rho Division building. “35.83333 degrees north latitude, 106.30303 degrees west longitude.”

Jennifer initiated a new feature of the program she had just finished, a scan that adjusted the coordinates in tiny steps, searching for any computer networks within a short distance of the given location. For over a minute, she remained focused on the readouts as the scan progressed.

Finally, she looked up. “Looks like we have a hundred and thirteen separate subnets in the building.”

Mark shrugged. “Pick one.”

“Might as well. We’re going to want to check them all,” Heather agreed.

“Okay, but it’s going to take quite a while to make sense of the data going across each subnet.”

“See if you can isolate any that Dr. Stephenson is using,” Mark suggested.

“That might be tough.”

“We should be able to pick up Stephenson’s activity by the way others respond to him,” said Heather. “Dad says he has scared the crap out of everyone on his inner team.”

Jennifer paused. “Okay. It’s worth a shot. If I can latch onto a response chain I can sniff the IP packets for the IP address of the computer Stephenson is using.”

“He may be using more than one,” said Heather.

“Most likely. All we can do is try to follow the bread crumb trail.”

Suddenly, Jennifer leaned forward, staring closely at the computer readouts from the scan. “Now that’s weird.”

“What?” Mark and Heather asked simultaneously.

“I have no idea. It looks like another computer network in the building, but it’s not using any form of Internet protocol, at least none I’ve heard of. From the look of the data signature, it must be one of those new massively parallel systems the lab is working on.”

“Why do you say that?” Mark asked.

“The data is just zipping around in one localized area, appearing and disappearing on separate nodes.” Jennifer paused, a stunned look spreading across her delicate features. “Christ. I can’t make any sense out of it.”

“Maybe the data is encrypted,” Heather said, leaning forward to look over Jennifer’s shoulder.

“Maybe. But I don’t even understand the data flow. Must be some new type of neural net.”

Mark stiffened. “Or an old one. What if you’ve accessed the computers on the Rho Ship?”

Heather’s gaze locked with Jennifer’s wide eyes.

“Oh shit.”

Raul felt the anomaly as a tingle in his skin. Turning away from his repair work, he let his consciousness roam the ship’s neural network. The data disruption was tiny, a semi-random power variance jumping here and there among the neural nodes, briefly sampling the node strength before moving on.

A probe!

The shock of realization stunned him. The Rho Ship’s systems were being probed from an external source, something that none of the scientists who had worked all these years on the Rho Project had even come close to accomplishing. Until moments ago, Raul had believed this impossible.

Raul increased his focus, bringing every working part of the Rho Ship’s massive neural net to bear on his analysis. If only he had made more repairs to the ship’s data storage banks. Perhaps they held some data that would give him a better idea of how this could be happening. Instead, he had been so busy repairing the matter disrupter power cells that he had delayed further work on the ship’s computing systems. Now that decision had come back to bite him on the ass. Well, there was no help for it. Raul would just have to make do with the tools he had.

As he began analyzing the nature and pattern of the probe, it disappeared as suddenly as it had begun. Odd. Had it noticed his sudden attention? Raul replayed the incident, noting every detail of the intrusion.

The signal strength had been very low and had just appeared, moving around inside his neural network in jumps. That in itself was quite fascinating. There was no sign in any portion of the neural network that something had passed through it. The signal had just appeared at various points as if out of nowhere.

Out of nowhere! Almost like what he had been able to accomplish through his worm fibers.

Raul rechecked the data, cross-correlating with gravitation readings from the other instruments. Except for the low-level gravitational flux from the Rho Ship itself, there was nothing out of the ordinary, certainly nothing of the magnitude a gravitational singularity such as that would produce.

So this wasn’t a gravitational technology. That left subspace manipulation as the most likely source of the anomaly. Subspace! The technological realm of the Enemy.

Raul felt his heart rate jump. Had the Enemy somehow managed to track the Rho Ship to earth? Shit! In its current damaged state, this ship was in no condition to survive an Enemy attack. If that was the case, he was trapped in a bottle that was about to be shot off the fence.

But that scenario didn’t feel right. Raul reexamined every measurement associated with the probe. The signal strength was far too weak to be an Enemy scan. It had also been too random, almost as if the source of the probe had not known what it was looking at. With the Rho Ship’s shielding inoperative, an Enemy scan would have been very powerful and would have simultaneously engulfed the entire neural net and all other shipboard systems.

Raul looked around the room in which he hung suspended in the stasis field. The artificial lens that had replaced his right eye swiveled in the socket, the hinged mechanism extending out of his head to zoom in on the panel where his umbilical cable connected to the ship. No doubt about it. If he wanted to have enough computational power to figure this out he was going to have to get back to work on the computing systems. For too long he had delayed the next round of self-surgery, the drastic step that would grant him the level of access he now needed.

Raul had imagined himself beyond fear, but now that he faced the reality of what had to be done, a deep dread made him weak in the knees. Glancing down at the empty space where his legs had once connected to his hips, he managed a smile. Perhaps not.

Then, taking a deep breath, Raul turned back toward the umbilical connection panel, letting the stasis field gather the surgical devices that would be required. His artificial eye telescoped into a thin flexible tube, extending to a point where it could focus on the spot where the umbilical entered the base of his skull. Having acquired sufficient skill with his field manipulation, Raul could control the instruments without using his hands. Unfortunately, he would have to remain completely conscious throughout the operation. The necessity of allowing the ship’s neural net to monitor the surgical progress meant that he didn’t even have the freedom to damp down the pain.

At least, bound by necessity, here in the dim gray light at the heart of the Rho Ship, he retained one essential freedom. He had the freedom to scream.

“Oh shit!”

“Back out of there!” Heather gasped.

Jennifer’s fingers were already flying across the keyboard, activating the commands that would jump the subspace transmitter to another coordinate, still within the Rho Building, but onto a conventional computer subnet.

Jennifer leaned back. “Done.”

“Thank God.” Heather suddenly remembered to breathe.

Mark had begun to pace beside the workbench. “You know what this means? That damn Stephenson has somehow managed to activate the alien computer system on the Rho Ship. God only knows how long he has had access to it.”

Jennifer shook her head. “Just because it’s turned on doesn’t mean he’s able to understand the data. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

“I wouldn’t make that bet. What about you, Heather?”

“Me either. I’d say there’s roughly an 84.61538 percent probability that he’s gotten at least some control over the system.”

“Roughly?” A grin softened the worry lines in Mark’s face.

Heather shrugged. “That still leaves two chances out of thirteen that I’m wrong.”

“Well let’s hope you’re wrong,” said Jennifer. “From the way the alien data pattern was changing, I’d say something noticed our intrusion. I’d rather think it wasn’t Dr. Stephenson.”

“I’m not sure I like thinking about what else might have noticed us either,” said Mark.

“Well they can’t have figured out much,” Heather replied. “We were only in there a few seconds randomly hopping around the neural net. There’s no way to trace the subspace signal back to us.”

“No way we know of,” corrected Mark.

Heather closed her eyes. “Even an alien trace is highly unlikely.”

“Please don’t recite the odds. We’ll take your word for it.”

An angry response had just started to form on her lips when she noticed Mark’s quick wink. He’d been pulling her chain, and she’d almost rewarded him.

As Heather stared, Mark’s face blurred ever so slightly. For a moment, it seemed that his eyes hollowed and long, greasy, blond hair hung over his shoulders. Then the vision was gone as quickly as it had come.

How long had it been since her last dose of medication? Five hours and thirteen minutes. More than an hour overdue.

“Sorry, guys. I’ve got to go home and take my meds. Mom’s probably about to come looking for me.”

Jennifer raised an eyebrow. “What about this?”

“I don’t know. I think it’s safe to keep searching for Stephenson’s computer, so long as you don’t access that ship. Wish I could stay and help, but I can’t. At least not until tomorrow. See you then.”

As she made her way out of the workshop, Heather felt another vision building in her mind. Without pausing to wave good-bye, she broke into a run, letting the door slam behind her.

After midnight, the silence that crept into the strange rooms and corridors that honeycombed Henderson House thickened until it could almost be felt on the skin. It emerged as the day’s second of three shifts checked out, replaced by the late-night crew. This much smaller assemblage consisted primarily of security staff who retreated to their stations, surrounded by monitors displaying the moving images from the building’s black, bulbous glass eyes, lost in the magical pages of the twin Ks, King and Koontz. The ubiquitous glass camera housings were almost everywhere, their output tied into motion sensors and computer analysis software that used sophisticated algorithms designed to alert the guards should something out of the ordinary occur.

One of these monitors showed a janitor working next to a trolley filled with an assortment of mops, brooms, buckets, and chemicals strong enough to kill germs by smell alone. The janitor had started the shift clad in snow-white coveralls that had now turned dingy, his rolled up left sleeve dripping brown water from the retrieval of a scrub brush lost to the depths of the mop bucket. His graying crew-cut head bobbed in a hypnotic rhythm as he swung the industrial mop slowly back and forth across the tile floor, each swing revealing the Grateful Dead tattoo that covered his right forearm.

The janitor returned the mop to its bucket and pushed the trolley around the corner into a narrow hallway that led only to the public restrooms and a large janitor’s closet. Fumbling with a heavy key ring, he unlocked the closet door, reaching inside to flip on the light. Then pulling the cart inside, he closed the door behind him.

The dimness of the lone 40-watt bulb caused him to pause momentarily to let his eyes adjust. For several seconds, the sharp shadows from the double utility sink hid the pipes beneath it. The janitor removed the thick, Coke-bottle glasses and placed them on a shelf, rubbing his eyes with his fingers. Then, without bothering to empty the mop bucket, he reached his damp left arm deep inside the murky water, extracting a plastic baggy from the bottom.

Drying the packet with a towel, he unzipped the zip-lock and removed a small cassette recorder and a tiny microphone at the end of a long, thin cord. The janitor worked quickly, inserting the plug into the microphone jack on the cassette recorder and then kneeling to lower the mike through the slits in the floor drain beneath the sinks. When it reached the bottom of the thirty-foot cord, he placed the recorder behind one of the sink pipes. Then, he slid a particularly foul smelling bucket of bleach over the drain, hiding both the microphone cord and the cassette.