Disc (25 page)

Nolan seemed to pull himself back from far away. After a few moments, he said, “Well, I certainly know how to make the graphene, though I really don’t know how Tiona was doping it. I certainly don’t know any of the characteristics of the current that produced the effect. I know that Tiona came across that current by accident and that it isn’t anything that anyone would normally think to apply, so that might be a real problem.” He brightened a little, “But, I’m sure I could do it with access to her notes.” Then Nolan frowned, “But maybe we shouldn’t? If we figure out how to make thrusters, our government wouldn’t have much impetus to rescue them from North Korea.”

“Yeah,” Dante sighed, “I worry about the same thing. But if we can never get them back, I still feel some responsibility to the people I have working for me. Tiona’s and my dad’s notes are both encrypted on their computers with a system my dad came up with himself. I’ve tried to figure it out myself with no luck and even bought a high-end commercial decryption program, which failed. The general has the NSA going over it at present and they’ve assured him that they’ll crack it, probably later today, but at worst before Friday.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure I can build a thruster if I have their notes, but I’ll still be worried about whether it’s the right thing to do.”

***

Landon glanced around at the rest of the people Dante had hired for GSI, wondering how they were taking this. Dante had just told them that the company didn’t really know how to build thrusters now that his sister and father had been kidnapped. There were several possibilities that might let GSI go forward. One was, of course, that the Gettnors would be released by or rescued from North Korea. A second possibility was that Nolan Marlowe would be able to figure it out once the NSA had decrypted Tiona’s notes. A third possibility would be that Marlowe could figure it out even without her notes, especially if GSI hired some more researchers to help him. Unfortunately, they probably wouldn’t have a lot better chance than UNC did at figuring it out, and if UNC beat them to the punch…

Looking pretty down, Dante wound up his little talk by saying, “So, GSI will be happy to keep you on salary indefinitely while we look to find a way to go forward, hopefully through their return from North Korea. Meantime, we’ll be working to replicate the thrusters by other methods on the sad chance that we never get them free. But, believing that honesty is always the best choice, I wanted to let you know what the situation was. We won’t hold it against you if you decide to look for other positions.”

Rachel said, “I don’t know about the rest of these lunkheads, but I’ve never had so much fun as I have working here at GSI. Admittedly, this is a huge setback, but I’m certainly going to stick around until I’m
positive
we can’t make it work.”

“I don’t know,” Gary said, “I’ll hang on a little while. At least until NSA decrypts those files and we figure out whether Marlowe is going to make any headway, but,” he shrugged, “I’ve got to think of my wife and kids.”

Your wife and kids could live just fine on what GSI’s paying you,
Landon thought. Out loud, he said, “I feel like Rachel. I’m staying until we’re absolutely sure we can’t do it.”

***

Cooper got a call from his contact at the NSA, “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

With a sinking sensation, Cooper said, “You’re not going to tell me you can’t decrypt them, are you?”

“I’m afraid it’s worse than that. The data files on those two computers are essentially gibberish. There’s no pattern detectable and they’re very small—too small to contain the kind of information you’re looking for. Essentially there’s nothing there to decrypt. Evidently someone got to the files before we did, presumably the Koreans during the kidnapping episode. They probably copied the data before overwriting the data in the files with random garbage.”

“I thought you guys could even extract data which had been deleted?!”

“Yeah, that’s because when you delete a file, you’re only marking it so that the computer
can
overwrite it the next time it needs to store data. If it hasn’t actually
been
overwritten before we get to it, we can unmark it and read it. In this case, someone overwrote every byte of data with random gibberish.”

“If they only overwrote some small files with gibberish, maybe the actual data is somewhere else?”

“Yeah, we thought of that and even analyzed the empty memory, it’s also random garbage.”

***

Lisanne sat staring out the kitchen window. For days now she’d been gripped by despair. Once again she tried to focus her mind on something proactive. The saucer was parked in Johnsons’ garage, she reminded herself. She could be in Korea in an hour or so. She’d gone so far as to climb into it late one night and confirmed that its AI would respond to her commands and that it could plot itself a course to Pyongyang.

She tried to tell herself that somehow that saucer was the key to rescuing her husband and daughter.

She just needed to figure out how.

The most important “how” related to
finding
Vaz and Tiona once she arrived in North Korea. Anytime she had contact with people from the government, she asked them if they’d figured out where her loved ones were being held. Either they didn’t know or they wouldn’t tell her.

Eventually, her mind circled back to a painful cycle where she berated herself for continuing to the basement while her family was being attacked. Yes, Vaz had told her to go there. Yes, he was the one who’d successfully defended the family last time. Yes, he was the fighter… but she
should
have stayed and at least tried to defend her family.
She felt tremendous shame that she’d fled to the basement while her loved ones were in danger.

Lisanne’s AI chimed, “A text from your husband has appeared in my files.”

Heart in her throat, Lisanne turned to the nearest screen saying, “Put it up!”

The message was typical Vaz. No greeting, no statement of love, all it said was, “Please turn on the computer in my lab.”

“Oh Vaz!” she said getting up and starting toward the stairs, “Are you and Tiona okay?”

There was no reply, so Lisanne said, “Send that as a text message also. And ask him if he and Tiona are being treated well?” She practically ran down the stairs.

Her computer said, “I’m sorry, the message from him just appeared in my files without apparently coming through any messaging program. I cannot reply.”

When they’d been dating, years ago, Vaz had often made messages pop up on her screens without sending them through any messaging programs. She’d never been able to figure out how he did it. “Just append the reply to the end of his message. He’ll extract it back out of the file.”

Vaz still hadn’t responded by the time she’d powered up the basement computer that his AI resided in. She said, “Text him that I’ve powered the computer up, but that I don’t think it’ll do any good because someone deleted all of his data.”

Lisanne sat waiting, hoping for some reply, but nothing ever came. Eventually, she said, “Tell him I love him too.” She slowly made her way upstairs and cried herself to sleep. She’d tell General Cooper about the bizarre message in the morning. She had a feeling that if she told him now, an NSA team would come over in the middle of the night and camp out to watch every last thing that happened on the lab computer. Or, worse, they might power it off to keep the North Koreans from forcing Vaz to extract data from it.

***

Khang sat watching suspiciously while Gettnor worked at his computer. Khang was one of North Korea’s premier hackers and was pissed that he’d been assigned to come to this facility twice a day just to babysit this American.

It seemed his second most important task was to connect the fiber optic cable at a physical switch outside the building. Only after he’d arrived and was sitting beside Gettnor was Gettnor to be allowed to connect to the internet. Khang was to watch everything Gettnor did on the computer during the time it was connected to the fiber. The most important responsibility he had was to be sure that Gettnor didn’t use the computer’s internet connection to contact anyone in America. Khang had been working as a hacker for his government for 10 years now and felt fairly certain that this man couldn’t slip anything past him, however, he’d been warned that the man was a genius.

At present, however, Gettnor was surfing the web site of a scientific supply company. He would pause every so often to have Khang authorize the purchase of a piece of equipment although the government would try to source the item in North Korea before letting the purchase go through. Khang felt appalled at the way the man was spending money, but he’d been told to buy
any
equipment Gettnor wanted. Apparently the supreme leader himself had authorized almost any expenditure in the belief that the man would produce technology worth far more than the investment.

Khang came to the conclusion that the man was indeed a genius. He certainly used the computer like one, not only speaking to the AI, but deftly using two touchpads and frequently striking key combinations on the keyboard. So few people used keyboards anymore that Khang found himself fascinated with all the things Gettnor could do using keyboard shortcuts. And do them so much faster than Khang normally did with voice commands.

A half hour after he’d logged onto the internet Vaz struck the key combo he’d designed during his non internet, off hours. He could tell that the program he’d built the day before was running because a single pixel in the lower left corner of the screen lit up blue. A half minute later the pixel turned red indicating that Lisanne had replied. With some frustration he saw it light red several more times, indicating that she was sending him several replies. He wondered what in the world she could be saying.

He hoped she was also turning on the computer as he’d asked.

He kept searching for equipment and telling Khang to order expensive items. The idiots had
no
idea what he really needed, so he enjoyed making them spend money on high priced toys and chemicals.

The pixel turned orange indicating that his program had connected itself to the computer in the basement and started downloading the items he’d requested. He resisted the impulse to check and make sure the data was indeed coming in and going into the correct file. Khang probably wouldn’t notice, but checking a file download might be something that even his dim-witted keeper would wonder about.

It took a while, but eventually the pixel turned green indicating that the download had finished, then white indicating that it had sent the message asking Lisanne to turn the computer back off. Vaz turned to Khang and said, “I’m done.” Five seconds later he blinked and said, “Thank you.” Lisanne always told him that saying “thank you” was painless and socially helpful, though Vaz found it difficult to remember.

Khang stared at him for a moment, then said, “I thought you wan’ download things from you computer in United States?”

Vaz said, “It’s turned off. We’ll have to try again tomorrow. Hopefully someone will turn it on tomorrow.”

Skeptically, Khang said, “I didn’t see you try to access it.”

Gettnor said a few words to the AI and his fingers flickered over the keyboard. A window popped open indicating a failure to connect. Gettnor’s head slowly turned to look at Khang. “Tell me when you’ve had enough time to read it.”

Khang stared at the window suspiciously for a moment. He thought he would have seen it if Gettnor had opened it before, but the man had windows opening and closing so rapidly that he
might
have missed it. “Okay,” he said reluctantly, feeling angry that the man consistently treated him like he was stupid.

The man’s fingers grazed the keyboard and the window disappeared. “You can disconnect the internet now. I won’t need it this afternoon. You can come back tomorrow.” He turned back to the computer and opened one of his CAD/CAM files, effectively dismissing Khang.

For a minute or two Khang continued sitting there. Angry at the way the man looked him in the eye like an equal. Angry at the way Gettnor condescended to him. Gettnor was practically bossing
him
around. Khang wanted to do something to put him in his place, but after some thought couldn’t think of anything. Besides, he didn’t want to make him mad enough that the man might hit him like he’d hit his keeper Chin. Tonight he would give it some thought and perhaps tomorrow he could do something. Maybe he should insist on searching through the man’s files. He couldn’t hack into them since the computer was being kept offline.

Yes, he’d come in tomorrow and search the computer before Gettnor woke up. Let the man wake to find Khang working at the computer and wonder what he’d found…

***

Cooper’s AI told him he had a call from Lisanne Gettnor. “Hello Ms. Gettnor. I’m afraid I don’t have any news.”

“Um, thanks General. I was just calling to let you know that Vaz contacted me last night.”

“What?! How?”

“A message just appeared in a file on my computer. He used to do this when we were dating years ago. I never figured out how.”