Antivirus (The Horde Series Book 1) (3 page)

“What kind of anomalies?” Hyde asked quickly.

“Well,” Kat said, clearing her throat. “We actually communicate directly with our driver while he’s in the machine. It’s a simple speech program that projects through the system speakers. There have been a few instances where we’ve lost communication for brief moments, but we have attributed it to simple lag spikes, nothing more. Jon has done countless closed box test runs and has never experienced any physical or mental complications of any kind.”

“What about with the linked machines?” Hyde continued to press.

“No anomalies,” she answered easily. “Jon is healthy and exhibits no side-effects from the disassociation, other than a short period of re-adjustment after ending a session and returning to his body. But that’s normal.”

“So when do we get to see him in action?” Monroe asked with a broad smile. “I am truly excited to see your demonstration.” Apparently he did not share his security specialist’s cynicism.

“Right now,” a new voice answered and all heads turned toward the door as Jon Sherrard entered the room.

Chapter 4

FutureTek Headquarters, Helena, Montana:
Jon was a tall, rangy man with tousled black hair and warm brown eyes. He was flanked by a woman who was quite obviously a physician, complete with clipboard and stethoscope draped around her neck. He stuck out his hand as he strode forward and clasped Michael Monroe’s hand firmly. “Jon Sherrard,” he greeted.

“Michael Monroe,” answered the COO of Systemtech who then introduced his two employees.

“A pleasure to meet everybody,” Sherrard said easily, “and this here is our good doctor, Diane Faust.”

Faust merely nodded with the introduction, her look unemotional.

“You ready for this, Jon?” Jackson asked, looking at the man with more than hopeful eyes.

“As long as Doc has me cleared, I’m all set,” he answered.

“He’s cleared,” Faust said softly, offering her clipboard to Monroe. “You may look at his vitals if you wish.”

The head of Systemtech took it, scanned it quickly, and then shrugged and handed it back to the physician. “Looks fine to me,” he said with a smile, hardly caring what the numbers said. He just wanted to see if the technology he was getting ready to spend a billion dollars on was going to be the next frontier for mankind.

“Then let’s get started,” Jackson said, rubbing his hands together.

Jon Sherrard seated himself in the central chair and leaned back and relaxed as Rivers and Faust began attaching electrodes to his arms, temples, and forehead.

As they worked, Monroe asked with extreme interest, looking directly at Sherrard, “What’s it like?”

“It’s a trip,” Jon said with a smile. “Out-of-body about covers things, I suppose.”

“What do you see when you’re in there?”

“That’s hard to explain, sir. I can’t actually see, since I don’t take my eyes into the machine with me. But I can sort of feel the images in my brain and somehow know what the coding is, kind of like a dream. It’s a weird sensation and it took me a few times to get used to it. Now, it’s just a walk in the park.”

“How about when you come out?” Hyde asked.

“It’s kind of like coming off a pretty wild amusement park ride,” he answered. “It’s pretty disorienting at first, but it passes quickly.”

“What about when you’re in the machine?” Monroe pressed. “Are you aware of physical sensations in reality?”

“We’ve actually run several tests on that,” Kat stepped in. “As far as we can ascertain, when Jon’s conscience is in the machine, there is no response to physical stimulus. His vital signs are monitored the entire time and there has never been a problem. Heart, respiration, etc. all continue normally.”

“Have you tried external stimulation?”

“Yes, we have,” she answered. “From temperature sensations to actual pin pricks, yet there has been no physical response to any of it. Jon can feel nothing.”

“Is that true, Mister Sherrard?” Monroe asked.

“Spot on, sir. We’ve tried a lot of different things. Even had my wife come in one time and kiss me and try…er…other things,” he stammered, suddenly embarrassed.

“And you weren’t aware of anything?”

“No, sir.”

“So his conscious has truly left his body, then,” Monroe said, turning to address Jackson. “That is most extraordinary. You do realize there are some wonderful medical possibilities here as well? Imagine the opportunities in dealing with coma patients or someone with Alzheimer’s. You have here a technology that could allow a patient to leave their damaged brain and converse with their doctors or family members. The potential is off the charts!”

“It has crossed our minds,” Drew laughed a little too loudly.

“Well, then,” said Monroe, clapping his hands together. “I think you have answered all of our questions for now, so let’s see your demonstration. Let’s see what Systemtech is considering buying,” he finished with a hint of mischievousness.

“You are satisfied with the test bed then?” Kat asked, nodding her head toward the three machines.

“We are,” Hyde said curtly, sounding almost disappointed that he didn’t find any trickery. “All three systems check out.”

“Jon?” Kat asked, turning to the seated man.

“I’m ready to go,” he answered easily, flexing his fingers before placing them on the armrest keypads. As soon as he did, Rivers immediately looped small pieces of Velcro over them, securing them in place.

“What are the pads for?” Allen Turner asked, peering closer.

“This is what I use to initiate contact with the hub,” Jon answered the question. “There is some mechanical manipulation involved to get me inside. It’s almost like opening a gate. Once I’m in, the keypads are not used again during the session.”

“What is the concept used to initiate mental contact with the hub?”

“To put it in the simplest terms, the hub reads his alpha waves through the electrodes,” Kat explained. “He uses his hands to input some specific program commands to open the gate and then his conscience is able to slip right in, like any other electrical current. That’s how it works in layman’s terms, anyway. Full technical disclosure will happen upon completion of the business transaction,” she said with a sly smile.

“Indeed,” Monroe laughed.

“All right everybody,” Doctor Faust spoke up. “We are ready to begin, so until he’s engaged, everyone needs to be silent. This is new territory and I won’t have anyone interrupting his concentration.”

The silence was immediate and all eyes turned to Jon, but the man had already closed his eyes. Doctor Faust locked her gaze on a small computer screen showing his vitals. For almost a minute, nothing happened. Then Jon’s fingers began moving over the keypads, making a soft tapping sound. After a few seconds, they stopped. Almost immediately, Jon’s voice was the first to break the silence, only now it was originating from the hub and had a somewhat robotic sound to it. “I’m in,” he said.

“Can you hear me okay, Jon?” Kat asked as she looked at the machine.

“Loud and clear, Kat,” he answered.

“Remarkable,” Monroe said quietly under his breath, looking from the unmoving body of Sherrard in the chair and back to the machine, where Jon’s voice was sounding from. “His lips do not even move.”

Kat smiled and explained. “They can’t. The voice you are hearing is Jon’s thoughts, being read into the hub and translated into speech. I apologize for the robotic sound, but we haven’t been as concerned with aesthetics as making the actual technology work.”

“Understood,” Monroe said, taking it all in, his face eager.

“I’m ready when you are,” Sherrard said from the machine. “Let’s get this party started.”

David Rivers looked up from his place at the head of the machine, keyboard on his lap, fingers poised.

Kat hesitated for only a moment, knowing this was it—the moment of no turning back. And there wasn’t. They had come too far. “Proceed,” she said quietly.

“Roger that,” Rivers replied, his fingers flying over his keyboard. “Opening the internet gate now, Jon.” A moment later: “You’re free to navigate to the honeypots.”

There was silence in the room as all eyes focused on Jon.

“Jon?” Kat asked tentatively.

“Still here,” his voice sounded from the hub. “This is all new, so it’s slow going. Bear with me. The vastness is incredible.”

“What do you see?” Monroe asked breathlessly.

“Nothing. But then again, everything,” came the cryptic reply. “I feel it all around me. It’s like it’s alive. Wow. I just…I just can’t explain it.”

“Never really was the poetic type,” Rivers chuckled as he placed the keyboard on the table and then began manually checking connections along the hub.

“Jon, remember what your task is,” Kat said, suppressing a smile. “You’re not being paid to go sightseeing.”

“Oh right, virus checking time.” Another few moments of silence. “Okay, I’m here. Down and dirty with the hard drive.”

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Fine,” he answered quickly. “Are our guests still on board?”

“Right here,” Michael Monroe said.

“I’m in machine number three,” Sherrard went on. “You have a listing of the active worms?”

“I see them. They’re right on the screen,” Monroe answered, looking at one of the monitors as Rivers pointed out the data. “There are six of them showing.”

“That’s what I’ve got,” Jon agreed. “Shall we get to it?”

“Certainly, but go after the fourth virus on the list first,” Monroe said slyly.

“Yes, sir,” Sherrard laughed.

All eyes went to the monitor and the real-time readout of the viruses that were currently infecting it. As they all watched, the fourth one suddenly went from red to green and then disappeared. The game was on.

There was a murmur of approval from the Systemtech representatives, and Monroe then began directing Jon Sherrard through the repairs of the other five viruses. When he had completed that, Monroe sent him into the other two machines and occasionally between the two of them, picking his targets at random. Each time he did, Sherrard cleaned it up. For nearly fifteen minutes, Sherrard performed flawlessly, and when he was done, Monroe clapped his hands. “Phenomenal work,” he said with a smile. “Absolutely brilliant!”

“Aww, twarn’t nothin’, sir,” Sherrard’s voice deadpanned in its computer-generated monotone.

“Now tell me, Mister Sherrard, how exactly did you do all that?”

“Well, it’s a simple matter of accessing the information directly from the hard drive or the boot sector, wherever the problem might be found. I then recode things from the hard drive on up,” Jon’s voice answered. “In this case, I simply deleted the malicious coding, in effect killing the worm.”

“So you can affect other repairs as well, besides just dealing with viruses?”

“Sure can,” Sherrard answered, knowing this would be part of their presentation. “Kat?”

Kat Hale reached out and picked up a flash drive they had prepared earlier and then handed it to Monroe. “This thumb drive has been purposefully damaged, having some of its information stuck in damaged sectors. It’s not a total loss, but should provide an adequate challenge. Jon will move the data from the damaged sectors into an undamaged one, thereby recovering it. He can then isolate the damaged sectors and render them inert. That way, additional data cannot be placed in them at a later date.” She turned and was almost ready to place the stick in one of the many ports on the hub when Monroe touched her hand to stop her and held out his other hand.

“May I?” he asked politely.

Kat hesitated only for a moment and then turned the drive over to him. “Certainly,” she said, wondering what the man was up to. “Standby, Jon,” she added.

Monroe took the disk and then turned and handed it to Dan Hyde, who immediately reached down and picked up a laptop computer that he had brought with him. With deft hands, he popped the computer open and then placed the stick in its own USB port. In a matter of seconds, he had a diagnostic running on the damaged disk. A minute later, it confirmed what Kat had said.

“You understand, Miss Hale, that it’s not about trust,” Monroe said easily. “I simply want to see how Mister Sherrard adapts to a curve ball.”

“I understand completely,” Kat answered flatly, but her nerves felt on edge. There was nothing about their presentation that was dishonest, but she was understandably nervous about any possible glitches popping up with the unknown.

“Excellent,” Monroe said and motioned to Hyde, who reached into his bag and produced a linking cable. The security specialist plugged one end into his laptop and handed the other end to Rivers, who cast a questioning glance at Kat. After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded and Rivers plugged the other end into one of the hub’s USB ports. “Mr. Sherrard,” Monroe went on, “I would like you to repair this disk, but do it on Mr. Hyde’s machine. Can you do that?”

Kat started to say something, but Monroe quickly held up a hand to silence her, while waiting for Sherrard’s answer.

“Well, it might take me some time to locate it, but yeah, I should be able to do that,” Jon’s voice finally said hesitantly after a long pause. “I think I will probably need….” 

“We have hard-linked Mister Hyde’s laptop to the hub this time,” Monroe cut him off, a bit too smugly. “So you should be able to go right to it. Perhaps in future demonstrations, we can see how good you are at wireless hide-and-seek.”

After another pause, Jon answered. “Sure,” he said. A moment later, he added. “I see it.” Hyde’s laptop started working and they all watched in anticipation as the flash drive began to boot.

“Accessing the drive now,” Sherrard’s voice continued. On screen, the drive went through a number of failed boot routines, each time followed by various error messages. After several minutes, the drive rebooted and this time, the disk contents popped onto the screen. “Finished,” Sherrard’s voice said with his own trace of smugness.

“Remarkable,” Monroe breathed in amazement.

“Would you like me to display some other files for you? There’s some large files on the primary hard drive here that are likely pics or videos, if my guess is correct.”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Hyde interrupted and quickly lowered the laptop’s lid.