Deadlock (19 page)

A minute later Anastasia Furan walked quickly into the room to see several of her computer technicians gathered around one terminal, talking quickly and quietly to each other.

‘Report,’ Furan snapped as she approached them.

‘Something’s burrowing through the firewalls,’ one of the technicians explained nervously. ‘We’re not sure how or why.’

‘I was assured that was impossible,’ Furan replied with a frown.

‘That’s the thing,’ the technician said, ‘it is. It would take the most powerful supercomputer on the planet hundreds of years to brute-force the encryption we’re using, but something out there is doing it in minutes.’

‘Where is the attack coming from?’ Furan asked.

‘We have no idea – something is preventing us from running a back-trace,’ the man replied, shaking his head.

‘I’ve got something,’ another technician said. ‘The attack’s origin device has a Disciple transponder ID.’

‘Which device does the ID code link to?’ Furan asked, feeling a creeping sense of unease.

‘Erm, it was . . .’ he scrolled down a list of names, searching for the matching number ‘. . . a field operative, Gretchen Metzer.’

‘If someone cracks the encryption on that transmitter would they be able to trace its transmissions back here?’ Furan demanded.

‘Yes, as long as the link’s active they would be able to trace the transmission here.’

‘Can we shut that device down?’ Furan demanded.

‘Yes, its transmissions to us are being blocked, but whoever’s doing this can’t stop us transmitting to the device. We can send a kill-code and destroy it.’

‘Then do it!’ Furan yelled. ‘Do it now!’

In H.I.V.E.’s datacore Nero and Professor Pike heard a sudden high-pitched whine from the cylinder in Otto’s hands. They exchanged a quick look and Nero dashed over to where Otto was sitting, plucking the device out of his hands and tossing it over the nearby railing. As it fell towards the array of black monoliths that made up H.I.V.E.mind’s data storage it detonated in mid-air with a soft thump, tiny pieces of debris scattering in all directions.

Within the data void, just a few seconds earlier, the red wall had finally crumbled and Otto flew through its shattered remains, chasing the scarlet filament to its destination. He followed the Disciple device’s transmission, bouncing at lightning speed from node to node of the global communications network, narrowing down the source. Suddenly, the glowing red filament snapped, vanishing in the blink of an eye.

‘NO!’ Otto yelled into the void. He spun around hunting for any remaining sign of the trace, but it had disappeared. He had been within seconds of isolating the transmission source, but now he had nothing. He felt a moment of overwhelming despair. With the loss of the trace they had lost their one and only chance of finding his friends.

I am sorry, Otto
, H.I.V.E.mind said, appearing in the void beside him.
The Disciples transmitted a self-destruct code to the transmitter. It has been irreparably damaged
.

Otto cursed under his breath. They had been so close.

‘Do you have a recording of the transmission?’ Otto asked, knowing that it would almost certainly be useless.

Yes
, H.I.V.E.mind replied, passing him a glowing red shard.

Otto studied it for a moment. The transmission was larger than he had expected. It should have been a simple command code, nothing more and yet . . . He looked more closely at the glowing shard that was really only a three-dimensional virtual representation of the transmission. There was something moving inside it. Otto tipped his head to one side, removing the outer data layer of the file. Hidden within was what looked like a tiny glowing worm. He touched the worm and absorbed the data contained within it. A moment later a huge smile appeared on his glowing avatar’s face.

‘Laura Brand, you’re a genius.’

‘The Glasshouse is somewhere within this area,’ Otto said, highlighting an area on the large map of the Antarctic that filled the glowing surface of the table in the middle of H.I.V.E.’s tactical operations area.

‘You’re certain?’ Nero asked with a slight frown. ‘There’s no way that the message from Miss Brand could have been faked? We could be being led into a trap.’

‘I’m certain,’ Otto said. ‘It’s hard to explain, but every programmer’s code has certain signatures. This was a Laura Brand hack, I’m certain of it. The worm she hid inside that transmission, kept a record of every router it passed through. The last one was a comsat that provides communication coverage for research stations within this area. I suspect that the Disciples have hijacked it for their own purposes.’

‘That’s a pretty big area,’ Colonel Francisco said, studying the map. ‘It could take months to find Furan in terrain like that.’

‘That’s where Nathaniel comes in,’ Otto said, gesturing to the old man.

‘How can I help?’ Nathaniel asked, looking slightly puzzled.

‘You said that you were only given details of the geology and topography of the area where the Glasshouse was to be built, correct?’ Otto asked.

‘I think I see where you’re going with this,’ Nathaniel replied.

‘If Nathaniel can give H.I.V.E.mind a reasonably accurate recreation of that data he can cross-reference it with the topography and geology of the area and that should give us a much smaller number of potential sites,’ Otto explained.

‘My main concern is that they will realise that we have their location,’ Raven said. ‘If Furan thinks for a moment that we’ve figured out where the Glasshouse is, she’ll evacuate. Could someone else find the data that Laura hid inside that file?’

‘It’s possible, yes,’ Otto said. ‘I have no idea how she got the virus inside the Disciples’ network, but it would have to be designed to spread quickly and via as many different systems as possible for it to make its way to us. That increases the chances of someone finding it and if they do I doubt it’s going to take them that long to figure out where it came from.’

‘And when they do, she’s dead,’ Raven said matter-of-factly.

‘So we need to move quickly,’ Nero replied. ‘H.I.V.E.mind, please work with my father to digitise his plans of Furan’s facility and narrow down its location. I want the rest of you to analyse the plans and come up with tactical options. You have twelve hours.’

As the others left the room, Professor Pike walked up to Otto.

‘How are you feeling?’ the Professor asked.

‘Fine, tired, but OK,’ Otto replied.

‘I’m not surprised you’re tired,’ the Professor said, shaking his head. ‘Your biometric readings were unbelievable. It was like you were running a marathon. If you don’t mind me asking, harnessing all that computational power, how did it feel?’

‘Honestly?’ Otto said with a tired-looking smile. ‘Terrifying.’

‘I should imagine it did,’ the Professor said. ‘H.I.V.E.mind told me what you went through. It was a brave thing you did, Otto. Not everyone may appreciate that, but I do.’

‘Thanks, Professor,’ Otto said. ‘Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go and try and get a couple of hours’ sleep as I don’t need to worry about blocking the signal from that Disciple transmitter any more.’

‘Of course,’ the Professor replied.

Otto walked into the corridor outside, before letting out a sigh. He hadn’t told the Professor the whole truth, of course. He didn’t want anyone worrying about him. The truth was that the experience in the datacore
had
been terrifying and exhausting, but what he hadn’t told anyone was that it was one of the most exhilarating things he had ever felt. Somehow the body he was walking around in now felt very small and weak. Part of him supposed that feeling would fade in time, but there was another part of him, a part that worried he would never feel quite the same again.

The following morning Otto woke up feeling like he’d been beaten up during the night. He was stiff, sore and had a pounding headache. He sat up in bed with a groan and rubbed at his throbbing temples. Wing came out of the bathroom at the rear of the quarters they had shared since they had both first arrived at H.I.V.E. and looked at his friend with concern.

‘You look unwell, Otto,’ Wing said, sitting down on the bed opposite. ‘Perhaps you should rest a little longer. I’m sure that Doctor Nero would understand.’

‘It’s not Nero I’m worried about,’ Otto said, rubbing the back of his neck. ‘We can’t afford any delays. If Furan figures out what Laura did . . . well . . . it won’t be good.’

‘I understand,’ Wing said. ‘If something were to threaten Shelby I would feel the same way.’

‘That’s different,’ Otto said. ‘You and Shel, you’re . . . y’know . . . a couple. Me and Laura are just friends.’

‘Really?’ Wing said, raising an eyebrow.

‘OK, look, I don’t know what me and Laura are,’ Otto said with a tired groan. ‘I thought something was happening between us, but then there was the Hunt and . . . it’s complicated.’

‘You are fond of her, she is fond of you,’ Wing replied. ‘It actually doesn’t get much simpler.’

‘Yeah, well, as it stands, I’m not even sure if I’ll ever see her again,’ Otto said, ‘and even if I do there’s no guarantee that Nero will allow her to come back to H.I.V.E., or even if she’ll want to.’

‘It’s strange, isn’t it,’ Wing said with a smile. ‘I remember when we arrived here and all we wanted to do was leave. Now it seems like home.’

‘For us maybe,’ Otto replied, ‘but we never really had homes before, not in any traditional sense, but Laura . . . well, she might not feel the same. Especially after what happened with her family being kidnapped and everything.’

‘In my experience, trying to second-guess how a girl is feeling is rather like juggling with chainsaws – fine as long as you get it right, disastrous, not to mention messy, if you get it wrong,’ Wing replied.

‘I dunno,’ Otto said, getting up and walking towards the bathroom. ‘I go away for a few months and you’ve turned into an expert on relationships. Here I was thinking all you knew was how to kick someone’s ass. I never knew you were such a ladies’ man.’

Wing laughed and stood up as Otto headed into the bathroom.

‘It is good to have you back, my friend,’ Wing said as he went towards the door. ‘I’ll see you downstairs.’

Otto smiled to himself as he looked in the mirror. Wing was right – it was good to be back, but he wouldn’t, he
couldn’t
rest until they’d rescued everyone from Furan’s clutches.