Mind Trace (32 page)

She pulled the covers up a little higher now and responded
hesitantly.

"I'm, uh…fine. I was just exhausted, I guess. Lots of
stress lately."

Her mind was still not cooperating with her completely and
she found it hard to concentrate. She shook herself, trying to clear the fog
around her brain.

"Um, I can be in the lab in half an hour." She
hoped he would take the hint and leave.

He seemed to hesitate, but then stood up and walked slowly
to the door. Right before he opened it, he looked back at her.

"Alice…I know this is difficult for you. Please
understand that we are only trying to do what is best for everyone.  We
honestly want to help you. The more you resist…well, you are only hurting
yourself. Can you imagine what the rest of the world would do to you? If anyone
found out that you know the kinds of things that you know, you would be in
constant danger, along with anyone close to you. People would kill for that
kind of information. You can do the most good here, where you can use your talents
without fear of being harmed.  You will see this, in time."

Alice stared at him, amazed at how genuine he sounded. He
actually believed what he was telling her.

How deluded can a person become? No matter what
wonderful and wholesome intentions he believes he has, I'm still his prisoner
and stripped of my free will. That makes him just as evil as anyone he imagines
he is protecting me from.

But as she watched him standing near the door, obvious
concern in his eyes, she also saw something else. There was a man that had been
blinded by ambition and power, but somewhere within him, there was still a
shred of humanity. It might be twisted and mutilated by his arrogance, buried
under his desire for control…but, it was still there.

It would have been so much easier if he were still the
unfeeling monster she originally thought him to be.

***

Alice was ready just as the door opened again with her
daily lab escort. She looked at the faces of the guards, but they all seemed to
be new faces.

They must switch out these guys regularly. Can't have
anyone getting too close to me...or too comfortable.

They walked the familiar path to her lab. Alice entered the
doorway and the guards shut the door behind her, leaving her to her work. She
sighed and walked over one of the desks with a terminal.

I have to get out of here.

She stared at the computer screen, mind emptied of all thoughts.
She toyed with the cables that lingered there, running along the backside of
the desk where they dropped off to connect to the isolated network in her lab. As
her mind felt the buzzing along the cords again, she stopped and held the cable
up in her hand.

Is this real? Or am I making all this up? What's
happening to me?

Alice had been tossing around a theory in her mind, but it
still seemed too outlandish to be possible, even taking into account what
already happened to her.

She decided to test the method she used the night before to
see if the results were reproducible.  Reaching over to the stack of papers on
the desk, she arranged some in front of her so she appeared to be merely
reading over files, instead of attempting something that should be impossible.

She quieted her mind, still holding the cable loosely in
her right hand, and opened her thoughts to the flow of information. To her
delight, it seemed to work the same as before. The feeling slowly built inside
of her until she was able to make out images and readable information. 

Alice wasn't sure how long she sat there. She repeated the
process until it came easily to her, occasionally flipping the pages in the
file in front of her to keep up the façade. When she was satisfied with her efforts,
she hesitantly decided to try the other half of her other theory…

When she first experienced the effect of the cable, her
mind began reeling with the possibilities. One of them had seemed more probable
than the others, and Alice had dared to hope that it could be true.

If her body was somehow able to detect the data from the
electric fields surrounding data transmissions, then it wasn't too much of a
stretch to imagine that she could also
manipulate
the information that
was passing through.

Her body had obviously been altered since her encounter
with the frayed wires. Now, it seemed she could also absorb information merely
by "sensing" data surrounding a transmission. Whatever had changed
inside of her could theoretically be used to also alter information. If that
was the case, she no longer needed to build anything to make her escape. She
only needed to wait for the perfect moment and she could be free!

Alice had no clue how to do such a thing, but she had a few
ideas.  It was best to start with something simple, so there were fewer
variables to affect her experiment. She found the cable that was connected to
the computer in front of her. Taking it in her hand as casually as she could,
she let her mind open once again.

A few moments later, she found herself viewing a virtual
highway of information as it was passing through the cable in her hands.  Part
of her was in a state of utter disbelief at what was happening. It was as if
she were living right off the pages of some science fiction novel. The other
part of her felt completely at peace. It felt like this was what her mind had
been designed for, like she was fulfilling some predestined purpose for her
life.

Without breaking contact, she began to formulate a command
to send to the computer. She decided on a simple instruction to run a program. 
It was the next part she was unsure of. Alice had no idea how to send
information from her mind, if it was even possible. She tried to translate the
command into zeros and ones, and then imagine sending that out through her
hands and into the data stream.

It all seemed so strange to her, and she felt silly doing
something so bizarre. She endured her vacillating feelings, trying not to lose
focus. Alice had become so involved in trying to accomplish her strange
experiment that she almost didn't hear the faint sound of the hard drive
whirring on the computer next to her.

Her eyes flew open, and she stared at the computer screen,
displaying a program it had just begun to run. Her hands were nowhere near the
keyboard and mouse, and she knew there was no other explanation for what she
was seeing.

Even though she had accepted that this was a possibility,
she had never really expected it to happen. Her mouth hung open as she gawked
at the screen.  Everything she had thought before about her abilities now
seemed silly and insignificant.

Not only was her mind transformed into a computer, complete
with extensive database of information, she now had the ability to sense any
kind of transmission, decode it, and even send back information in the same
way. She was unstoppable.

She let out a hysterical laugh. Alice knew somewhere in the
complex, there were guard sitting in front of security feeds staring at her,
thinking she was must be some sort of mad scientist.

Alice didn't care one way or the other. She was too busy
trying to wrap her mind around the concept that she had effectively become a
modern day superhero. Her mind danced with childlike glee as she imagined
herself saving the world with her incredible superpowers.

She must have been sitting there for quite some time,
because the monitor in front of her powered off due to inactivity. Alice could
make out a vague reflection of herself on the now darkened screen, and she
realized that she really did appear to be half-mad.

 I guess I better try and look normal. Wouldn't want
anyone coming to get me again because they think I went over the edge…

No matter how incredible and amazing this realization was,
it was not something she could let anyone discover. No, she had to hide her
abilities from those who would seek to harm her or harvest her powers for their
own selfish gain. 

She had the capacity to do great things, but it was going
to take some time to learn how to control it. Not that she didn't have enough
to worry about…

***

It had taken Garrett several hours to go through his entire
collection.

He had been collecting computer viruses for the past
decade. It was a strange hobby to have, and he knew most people would question
his sanity for doing so.

Most people do everything they can to get rid of those
things. Not me!

Garrett appreciated sophisticated coding when he saw it and
he couldn't deny that most of the viruses were the work of talented, albeit
misled, individuals. Some were given to him from the few people that knew of
his hobby. The rest, Garrett had collected himself. He never imagined they
would be used for anything practical, but he was now ecstatic that he had
chosen to keep them.

After getting off the phone with Nick, he began his planning.
The man Nick had followed, Tobias, gave him the perfect backdoor to infiltrate
the EngineerCorp network.

Garrett knew Tobias was in charge of stealing information
from other companies, just as he was stealing it from him. He backed up that
data to the EngineerCorp server daily. If Garrett could somehow sneak in to his
house during the backup, he could upload a virus directly onto their mainframe.

EngineerCorp would, of course, have firewalls and virus
protection…but if he had enough time, he could bypass them temporarily through
the connection on Tobias' computer. Tobias would have already done the hard
part for him, connecting through their VPN and opening up a port on their
server to upload data. All Garrett had to do was make sure his virus got the rest
of the way, to the heart of EngineerCorp.

No ordinary virus would do, either. Even if they were
infected, they had the means and manpower to remove a virus with ease. But if
Garrett were able to combine the worst of his collection into some type of "super
virus," it just might be enough to take down their network for a short
time. He only hoped that by doing so, he could give Alice enough time to
escape. 

That was where he ran into his second problem. How could he
get a message to Alice? Garrett would have been more than happy to unleash a
virus on EngineerCorp solely for what they had done to him, but it would defeat
his purpose if Alice were not able to use it to escape. He could target the
virus into their security system, but even then, he had to find some way to
warn her.

He gazed around the room, searching desperately for
something to help him, when his eyes fell on the Memory Keeper. His thoughts
drifted again, marveling at the finished prototype. How had Alice been able to
complete such a task in the expanse of one night?  She was certainly gifted…

Garrett took a break from what he was doing and slipped on
the Memory Keeper. 

It was like watching a movie of all his memories. Bits and
pieces of his experiences flashed before his eyes as he sorted through them
all.  The clarity still amazed him. There were so many details that were picked
up by a person's subconscious, only to be stored away, unused. He stopped on a
vision of Alice, the last time that he had spoken with her. They were in her
cell. Her otherwise bright face was transformed with worry and tinged with a
sadness he had not noticed before.

Garrett was focused on her face, but a small, blinking
light in his periphery caught his eye. He reoriented the view and focused on
the source of the distraction.  Zooming in, he found that it was a small
security terminal next to the door.  As the view got closer and closer, he
could make out the numbers on the keypad and a small speaker near the corner.
There was an intercom system on the terminal…

He almost jumped up with elation at the realization, but
thought better of it when he noticed he was still wearing the headset. He
gently removed it and placed it on the table.

It's perfect! If I can somehow find a way to identify
her terminal from all of the others in the complex, then I can find a way to
play a message from the one in her room.

Downloading the video to the computer, he replayed the
scene on the screen in front of him. He zoomed in and scrutinized the terminal
in Alice's room for anything helpful. Along one side of it, in tiny black
lettering, he spotted a fifteen-digit ID number.

If only everything could be so easy! Alice, you've done
it again!

When he was convinced he could find nothing else useful
from the memory, he sat back and reviewed the information he had collected.

Tobias backed up his computer to the EngineerCorp mainframe
each morning shortly after 6:30am, right before his shower. Garrett would have
less than fifteen minutes to break into the house, upload the virus, and hack
into their security system to send his message to Alice.

Never mind the fact that he had never broken into anyone's
house before, created a computer virus, or used said virus to take down a
company that was the technological backbone of the world…

It doesn't matter what I know. I have to try. I can't
let her down.

***

Garrett stayed up late each night, working diligently on
his plan. He could only work within the safety of his lab, not wanting to risk
being caught during the day while he was at work. If the surveillance team even
began to suspect his activity, they would make sure he never got anywhere near
Tobias, or anyone else.

Calling in another favor, Garrett contacted one of his longtime
hacker friends to create the virus. The man was especially skilled in
understanding malware, providing the perfect candidate. 

He was eager to help and didn't ask too many questions. In
his line of work, he couldn't afford to be meddlesome. In exchange, Garrett offered
him a copy of his virus collection. His friend may have been a hacker, but
Garrett knew him well enough to know that he wasn't malicious. He just
appreciated good coding when he saw it, and had a talent for exposing
vulnerabilities in software.