Antivirus (The Horde Series Book 1) (19 page)

Chapter 26

FutureTek Headquarters, Helena, Montana:
For the moment, the parasite was in control again after the host had nearly ruined everything. The parasite had directed the healing process, using the programming power of the intellect to repair what should have been a fatal wound for the host. However, once the healing was completed and the parasite began to relinquish control back to the host, the host had nearly had a breakdown. The host was unable to psychologically come to grips with what was required to repair and rebuild, and it had attempted what would have meant certain self-destruction. The host had tried to make a phone call to the one man that the parasite feared. The parasite knew it should have waited in hiding and eliminated Agent Rick Alders when it was at the man’s home.

Fortunately, the parasite had not been completely dormant and had recognized what the host was attempting to do. It had immediately retaken control and, for now, the construct’s native psyche was suppressed, lying dormant until the parasite released its hold over it. Normally, the period of activity for the parasite was a short one, as it had not yet realized the extent of control it could exercise over the host. But the parasite had been growing in strength and in its understanding of the host construct. As such, it was able to exercise greater control over it, and for greater lengths of time. Right now, it held control because it feared what the host might do if it regained it itself. So, the parasite would hold onto that control until it could either trust the host psyche…or figure out how to exterminate it once and for all.

In the meantime, while the host slept unaware, the parasite had a more pressing desire to attend to. Night had fallen and it was approaching its destination. What it planned to do tonight did not require the host. Tonight would be all about the parasite. Tonight would be about revenge.

Drew Jackson wasn’t exactly worried about things, but he believed in being thorough. Even if any of the bodies were found quickly, it would take some time to trace anything back to him or FutureTek. By then, he would be long gone and Systemtech would control everything. Let Monroe take any heat that might come about. The Systemtech CFO was encased in Teflon anyway and would likely weather any fallout. Jackson held no such illusions about himself. His future was a nice, unremarkable bungalow somewhere far away from the United States, where he could live out his life in obscene but quiet opulence with a bevy of young, available women.

To that end, he was busy purging his hidden files from the mainframe. While Hyde and his team had been expertly set up and eliminated by him and Monroe, he was still unnerved somewhat by the hardware the team had brought to the job. Hyde had apparently not had much of a problem accessing his encrypted files—and if he could do it, why couldn’t anyone else? That left him feeling exposed, and tonight’s late-night foray had him working diligently, erasing those footprints.

Humming to himself, he activated the program from the external drive and started it working on erasing the files and folders he thought were best removed from existence. As the program worked, a blinking red light caught his attention and he looked up at the security panel mounted to the wall next to the desk. Sucking in his breath, he wheeled his chair over for a closer look. Although everyone else was gone and the security system was activated, the back door had just been opened. Even more surprising, no alarms had been triggered, when the whole building should be screaming right about now. Whoever had come in had not shut the system down, which would have sent text alerts to all FutureTek executives as well as the police department and fired up an alarm system that could be heard in Idaho. Instead, they had left the system running and simply silenced it. It was the same thing Hyde’s group had done during the break-in and Jackson’s immediate thought was that it was Monroe coming back for a double-cross.

But why? If Monroe had decided to eliminate him, it would completely destroy the deal they had in place. For the moment, Monroe needed him as much as he needed Monroe. Jackson was smart enough to know, though, that once the deed was done, the quicker he disappeared, the better off and safer he would be.

Reaching out, he activated the security camera monitor and immediately flipped to the back door and hallway. He caught only a brief shadow moving quickly down the hall toward him. He thought about activating the lights, but that might scare the intruder away. No, much better to face him here and get things settled on his terms.

He picked up the Glock he had placed on the desk, kicked up his feet and waited, facing the door. But the intruder never showed, and even though Jackson kept watching the monitors, he saw no more sign of the person.

Now he was worried.

He quickly scanned the monitors again, switching through the different channels. There was no movement anywhere. “Screw this,” he hissed and then activated the lighting throughout the building. Again he scanned the monitors.

Nothing.

Whoever had broken in was hiding.

Picking up his gun, he opened the door of the mainframe room and stepped out into the lighted hall. “I know you’re in here!” he called out, as much to reassure himself as to alert the intruder that he knew he was there. “If I have to come looking for you, I’m going to put a bullet in your head!” That statement wasn’t entirely true, though. He planned on putting a bullet in the person’s head no matter what.

But no one came out to surrender. Only silence answered him back.

“I’m not kidding!” Jackson shouted angrily. “Get your ass out here now and the worst you’ll get is a night in jail!”

He waited for several minutes, and when he heard nothing, he started stalking down the hall, gun out. Whoever had broken into his company was a dead man. The security lighting did a good job of illuminating most of the building, including the rooms. He would just have to check the shadows – under desks and behind equipment. The building wasn’t overly large and there weren’t many places to hide. He had a hunch he’d be calling in a self-defense shooting before the hour was up.

Calling the police now was out of the question, though, because he didn’t need them running around asking the wrong questions. Whoever was in his building wasn’t there for an average break-in. It had something to do with the deal, and that meant they needed to die before the police arrived. Dead men told no tales and he meant to keep it that way.

He ducked into the lab and moved quickly through the room, skirting the scattered equipment and the main hub. Looking under a couple of desks, he still found nothing and the silence was beginning to unnerve him. He began to wonder if maybe the intruder was here for him.

Tightening his grip on the gun, he moved out into the hall. His breathing was quicker now and he felt beads of sweat begin to break out on his forehead. He would check the offices next. The sooner he eliminated the rat, the better he would feel.

That’s when the lights went out.

Jackson’s heart skipped several beats and he whirled back and forth in the darkness, expecting an attack. But when the emergency lights kicked on, bathing the hallway in a dim red glow, he saw nothing.

Swearing under his breath, Jackson quickly headed back to the mainframe. Anger had turned to fear and he knew he had to get a grip on the situation. At least back in the mainframe lab, he could barricade himself in and think things through. Maybe calling in the police would not be such a bad idea after all.

He reached his destination and slipped back inside, shutting the door quietly behind him. Moving back to the work station, he again flipped through the security monitor feeds. Nothing had changed. Everything was empty and still.

Then the bank of security monitors went dark. Every last one of them.

Jackson swore viciously under his breath as he scrambled back to the station and began keyboarding, trying to get the system back online. No matter what he did, though, nothing worked.

Until a single monitor came back online.

Feeling true fear now, Jackson looked closely at it. Instead of the camera’s picture, it was filled with static and snow. Jackson would have considered it a software malfunction until a voice sounded over the systems speakers. It was robotic sounding, but there was a distinct tone to it that he recognized, and as it spoke, the fuzzy image of a face could barely be discerned in the interference on the display.

“Good evening, Drew,” the voice said.

Jackson leaned closer to the display, watching the image’s mouth seem to move as the voice spoke. “Perry?” he asked in complete shock. There could be no doubt now as the image became clearer.

“Thought I would pay my old boss a visit,” the image of Perry Edwards went on.

“Perry, where are you?” Jackson asked in shock, his eyes glued to the image. “You died! You died in your house!”

“I didn’t die, Drew,” Perry’s image replied. “Only my body did.”

“But…”

“You set me up, Drew,” Perry cut him off.

“What are you talking about? Of course, I didn’t!”

“Don’t lie to me, Drew,” Edwards went on. “You told me to run the demo for the offshore interest. You supplied everything to me.”

“Well, that was the plan,” Jackson countered. “You agreed to it, Perry! You run the demo and then cash in with the rest of us.”

“It found me,” Edwards added, his voice seemingly forlorn. “It came to me and absorbed me, Drew. It made me part of it.”

Drew leaned closer, his attention focused solely on the display. Behind him, fleshy filaments began to descend from an air vent in the ceiling, easily slipping through the thin openings between the metal fins. His eyes on the display, Drew was unaware of what was happening. “Perry, how could we have known?” he stammered.”It was an accident. It was just an accident!”

“You left me, Drew. You left me to die while you went and saved Jon instead.”

“But Jon was still alive.”

“I was alive!” Perry’s voice nearly shouted.

“I swear, I didn’t know,” Jackson tried pleading. Behind him, the tendrils were winding their way toward him.

“But I found a way, Drew,” Perry went on, his voice quieting. “I found Jon.”

“Jon? What do you mean you found him?”

“He and I are one, Drew,” the voice said easily. “He is the host.”

“The host? Wait a second, Perry. I don’t understand.”

“We are one,” Perry said again, his voice low and almost hypnotizing. “We act as one. We breathe as one. We are as one.”

At that moment, sheer luck saved Drew Jackson’s life. The bony edge of one of the alien extensions clicked off the side of a server rack and Jackson suddenly whirled around. The sight of the wriggling worm-like feelers coming toward him was enough to make him scream. But it wasn’t enough to render him motionless and he threw himself across the desk, putting some distance between himself and the appendages. “What the…” he began, as he leveled his gun. But what would he shoot at?

“As you can see, Drew,” Edwards’ voice continued, the snowy face from the monitor following Jackson’s movements. The feelers continued moving toward him and Drew Jackson had nowhere to go.

“Perry, let’s…let’s talk this out,” Drew said, his voice shaking. He had never seen anything like what he was witnessing now.

“No, Drew,” Perry went on, the filaments waving in the air. Several went into the side of the security desktop, burrowing through the metal like it was butter. Moments later, the displays changed, each of them showing a clear image of Perry Edwards. But it was not exactly Perry anymore. His face moved and undulated, and it was positively unnerving. “There is nothing to talk about. As you can see, I have evolved. I can absorb systems and software as easily as I can assimilate organic matter.”

“Organic matter?”

“You,” Perry said and one of the filaments shot forward, drilling into Jackson’s leg.

Drew Jackson felt a blazing pain unlike anything he had ever felt before. Looking down and seeing the fleshy extension buried in his thigh was enough to bring forth a raw scream of primal terror. Another tendril burrowed into his shoulder and several more were coming for his face and chest. He screamed louder and acted on instinct in one last-ditch effort to survive. Pointing his gun at the air vent, he pulled the trigger.

The video displays all went white as power overloaded them and they began to explode one-by-one. Jackson fired again and the worms pulled free of his body, leaving bloody holes as they retracted back into the air vent.

Continuing to scream, now in pure rage and pain, Jackson emptied the entire magazine, firing every bullet he had into the air vent even as the filaments disappeared back into the darkness. Stumbling forward, he howled, “You’re a dead man, Perry!  You and Sherrard both! You hear me!?”

He was answered with silence. The darkness of the room was lit only by the red glow of the security lights as the security system was now completely off line. But enough light remained as Drew limped forward, to see that he had won. Dark liquid was now dripping through the vents, spattering on the floor.

Blood.

Whatever Perry or Sherrard was, the thing could bleed. And with the amount of blood dripping through the vent, he was pretty sure he had killed it.

Pulling out his phone, he called Agent Rick Alders. No sense in messing with the police now. Alders would have a field day with what happened and Homeland Security’s involvement should create enough commotion that he should be able to slip away unnoticed, particularly with Sherrard or Perry or whoever he really was, out of the way.