Death of Secrets (22 page)

There she found Mike and Kathy. Without apologizing at all for
barging in she said, "Come on, you've
got
to see this!"

Kathy and Mike looked a little startled, but both stood up and
followed after Colleen as she led them out of the room.

When Mike and Kathy didn’t move as quickly as her, Colleen
said, "Hurry! I gotta show you guys this. And be quiet, we don't want to
wake
Hugh
." She laced the name with a generous dollop of venom.

Once she found the door and led them in, Colleen walked right
up to the monitor and pointed at it silently.

"So what?" Kathy asked. "So he can afford a flat
screen monitor. We noticed that before…"

Kathy noticed what was on the screen just as she finished her
sentence.

>Subject COLLEEN CHRISTINA reacquired, identified from file.

>Second subject acquired.

>Third subject acquired.

>Subject two feels confusion.

>Subject two says "So what? So he can afford a flat
screen monitor. We noticed that before."

>Subject COLLEEN CHRISTINA feels frustration.

>Subject two feels amazement.

>Fight or flight reflex triggered in subject two

>Subject three experiences interest in topic
"Kathy."

>Subject two self-identifies as KATHERINE KELVER.

>Uncatalogued input from subject three concerning topic
"Kathy."

>Subject KATHERINE KELVER feels embarrassment.

>Subject three self identifies as MICHAEL VINCENT

>Subject MICHAEL VINCENT feels strong interest in object to
front.

>Fight or flight reflex triggered in subject MICHAEL VINCENT

>Subject MICHAEL VINCENT feels strong embarrassment.

Colleen broke the silence. "See? See? He wasn't just
sabotaging it! He was building his own! He lied to me! He totally lied! I
wonder if his name is even Hugh!"

Kathy found her voice. "This… this… this reads our
minds?"

Colleen nodded. "It receives and interprets the functional
radiation of a human brain."

"But… but… how?"

"We went through this earlier, Kathy. Your brain radiates
when you think, just like any system that uses electricity. And just like a radio
antenna receives and interprets the radiation of a radio broadcast, this
receives the radiation your brain broadcasts."

"But how does it know what I'm thinking?"

"I showed you earlier, remember? The pattern matching
library? Obviously the programmers have identified a number of patterns of
human thought-radiation and catalogued them. When the computer receives the
input that your brain radiates out, it compares it against that library and
prints the result. Did you see the "uncatalogued input"? Those are
thoughts it hasn't cataloged yet."

A skeptical frown crossed Kathy’s face. "Jakarta can’t
have identified all that many thought patterns or whatever already! He just got
the flash drive tonight."

"No, Kath, The original authors did that, Electron Guidewire,
remember? He just stole their flash drive with the code on it."

Finally Michael spoke. "But… but… this can't be GigaStar.
It's huge! GigaStar is smaller than an eraser head on a pencil."

Colleen growled. "I'm sure this little jerry-rigged
operation didn't have the miniaturization capability that a full fledged
factory would have. For something built by hand, it's pretty good. But we don't
have time for this! We have to get out of here and tell someone!"

Mike set his jaw. "Alright, then. I never felt good about
these people, right from the start. Colleen, grab that little device they've
built. Kathy, pop our flash drive out of the drive. Colleen, how do you destroy
a hard drive so thoroughly that the data can never be recovered?"

Colleen looked at him approvingly. "Smarter than I
thought," she said, smiling. "It's not enough just to delete files,
the hard drive retains them. Basically, we'll have to take the hard drives with
us. The only way to be one hundred percent certain that data can never be
recovered is to burn them."

Mike sighed. "OK, maybe you better deal with the hard
drives. I'll get the flash drive and the little thingy here."

Colleen shook her head. "This one hard drive is enough. I
was with him the whole time in here, he never transferred the files to any of
his other machines."

Mike nodded and popped the flash drive that had started the
whole mess out of the computer's drive. He put it back in its case, which
Jakarta had left sitting beside the computer. Colleen stretched out her hand
for it, and Mike passed it over.

He reached for the power button to power the box down while
they disassembled it. His finger was posed on the switch when he looked one
last time at the screen.

>New subject acquired.

>Subject four feels intermediate interest in noises to
front.

Colleen didn't see the screen. She was behind the computer,
pulling cords out. "Does anyone see a screwdriver?" she asked?
"I have to get this box open."

"No time," Michael hissed. "They're
coming!"

Colleen looked up from behind the computer to see Mike pointing
at the screen. She recognized the danger at once – a new subject could only
mean someone coming toward their room.

"I’ve almost got the gizmo unplugged, give me a couple
seconds more."

"Where do we go?" Mike asked. "He's gonna come
through that door any second!"

Colleen gave up on getting the GigaStar mock up unplugged, and
her head swiveled madly around, looking for another way out. What she saw
instead was Kathy standing about five feet away from her, picking up the beige
desktop box to one of the other computers.

"Kathy, what are you…"

Kathy hefted the computer, cords and all, clearly straining.
Rather than answer Colleen's question, she threw it out the window, shattering
glass. Still plugged in, its cord dragged the computer across the worktable
before tearing loose.

"They heard that for sure," Mike said.

"Kathy, what are you doing?" Colleen asked. It came
like a cross between a shout and a whisper.

"Getting us out of here. There’s only one door and your
pal techno-boy is about to come through it," Kathy said. "Now follow
me."

She grabbed a coffee cup from the table and used it to clear
out the excess glass as Colleen protested. "We must be a hundred feet up!
We can't go out there!"

Kathy was already crawling across the desk and out through the
window when she said, "Remember, I’ve been out the windows of this place
once before. I don’t think it’s more than fifty. There’s a ledge out there we
can stand on. But if you want to stick around, go ahead. Don’t count on them
being gentle." Then she slid out of view through the window.

As she went out, Mike and Colleen heard. "Here we are
again, Lord. Please keep me safe one more time. Keep all of us safe."

Mike looked at Colleen, Colleen looked at Mike, and then the
two of them dashed at once for the window. The Congressman let Colleen go
first. Hurriedly she crammed the flash drive into the pocket of her tight
jeans; she was too rushed to get it all the way in, but it was good enough.

Mike went after her. Once through the window, he felt a hand
take his and help him.

He couldn't look down because he was facing the building,
standing on the narrowest of ledges. But he heard the street noises far below,
and that was enough. Mike found himself standing on a ledge outside the window,
feeling the cool night breeze tug gently at his clothing.

He swore and closed his eyes. In his ear he heard Kathy's voice
say, "To your right! Fast! Make Colleen go!"

He cracked open his eyes and looked right, where he saw
Colleen, turned to face the building, clinging to little handholds of brick.
Apparently, on coming out the window, Kathy had gone to one side and Colleen to
the other. Now the Congressman found himself between them.

"Colleen," he whispered, "we've got to move
now
or we'll get caught."

Colleen inched one foot slightly to her right, then followed it
with the other.

"Faster!" Kathy growled.

In response, Colleen whimpered, "I don’t like
heights." But she picked up her pace a little bit.

Mike moved sideways carefully over the ledge. He couldn’t help
it any longer, and craned his neck around to look over his shoulder. A small
river of car headlights flowed at least fifty feet below him. Swearing under
his breath, he followed Colleen.

Whimpering all the while, Colleen made it to the corner of the
building and stopped. Mike was close behind. Kathy, closest to the window
they'd come out of, heard the door in the computer room open and Jakarta
swearing loudly.

"Around the corner, Colleen. Right now!"

Still whimpering, Colleen crooked her leg around the corner and
groped with her unshod toes for a foothold. Finding one, she moved the other
leg around too, and disappeared from view. Mike followed her around, scraping
his fingers as he scrabbled for any kind of handhold. Kathy came last.

The wind howled madly, unrestricted by many buildings at this
height. Mike felt it whipping his shirt around, getting down through the collar
and billowing out. He edged a little bit further toward Colleen. Apparently the
other side of the building was protected from the wind, but here they were
right in its path.

Colleen turned to look at him, but the movement shifted her
balance. She waved her arms in little circles. A noise like a squelched scream
slipped out of her lips as she leaned precipitously forward. Her foot slipped.

Just as one foot waggled over the void, Mike reached around her
back and pulled her forcefully back onto the ledge. But even as she jerked back
to stable footing, the flash drive slid loose from her pocket and tumbled, end
over end, down behind her.

Colleen was about to look over her shoulder to see where it
landed when Mike stopped her. "Forget it. It’s not worth you
falling."

Kathy paused only long enough to make sure her roommate wasn't
going to fall. Voices of Jakarta and Jerry drifted to her from the computer
room. She kicked in the window in front of her, that Mike and Kathy had
squeaked past. She gave several more little kicks to clear out loose glass,
wincing at the unavoidable noise.

"I think this goes into the living room, where we first
came into this place," she said. "Come on, we can go out the door and
get out of here." With that, she swung her feet through the window, and
followed them with the rest of her body.

Mike edged over to the window. He looked over at Colleen, gave
her hand a good luck squeeze, and went through himself. Immediately upon
entering, he heard voices and the sound of running feet.

"Kathy, I think they heard you break the window," he
whispered.

She was already at the far door, though, holding it open and
urging him forward. Mike turned back to look at the window, watching Colleen
crawl timidly through.

Only when she was all the way in did he run over to Kathy.
Colleen scrambled to her feet, shook her head once to get her bearings, and
started walking toward Kathy and Mike. The other door flew open, then, with
Jakarta framed in the doorway.

"Stop!"

Instead of stopping, Colleen sprinted over to her roommate, who
pulled her through the door and slammed it shut behind her. Together, all three
ran down the deserted hallway as fast as they could.

They heard the door open, and the noise of running feet behind
them, but none dared look back until Kathy skidded to a stop. She yanked open
the entrance to an emergency staircase. As she turned, she caught sight of
Jakarta closing rapidly.

In desperation, she looked around for anything she could use as
a weapon. There was nothing, but as Mike passed her and started heading down the
stairs, she spied a fire alarm. She grabbed it and yanked with all her might.

Sirens screamed throughout the building as Colleen passed her
and headed down. Kathy slammed the door again, with the pursuit bare yards
away, and ran after the other two. She'd gone one full flight of stairs and was
half way down the next when she heard the door behind her come open again.

Kathy poured on a burst of speed and passed Colleen on the wide
staircase. She got close enough to Mike that she could communicate with him
without being overheard by Jakarta one flight above.

"The next door, Mike! Take the next door!"

Obediently, he opened the door and went through it, running
head on into someone from that floor trying to get into the staircase.

"Is there a real fire?" the person asked, seeing them
running all out.

Kathy came through after Mike, then Colleen.

"No fire," Kathy said. "Don't open that
door."

She crouched away from the door and pulled Michael after her.
He pulled Colleen. Together they ignored the bewildered resident and listened
to the sound of sprinting feet race by their level and continue on.

***

When he tumbled out of the emergency staircase having run the
whole way down, Jakarta found his friend Jerry standing guard at the front
door. "They can't have come through here," Jerry reported. "I
took the elevator straight down, no way they got here before me.

Jakarta waved his arm at the small flood of people going out
the front door, driven by the wailing fire alarm. "They could have gotten
mixed up in this bunch."

Jerry shook his head. "No way, man. I've checked."

"OK, well, I think we have to proceed on the assumption
that they're still in the building. If they're out, we'll never catch them
anyway. You stay here and keep them from going out the front door. I'll start a
floor-by-floor search. We can't let them stop us, Jerry. We're too close."

With that Jakarta fought the tide of residents trying to get
out the emergency staircase and made his way back up to the second floor.
There, he walked carefully down the hallway, looking for his
"guests." There wasn't much he could do if they'd talked another
resident into hiding them in an apartment. But he was counting on the fact that
this was a city, and smart people weren't likely to open their doors to
breathless running strangers.