First edit, thanks, ED! Type silly at 4:30 AM... )
67: Cold and Dark
Driving south, toward Washington, D.C.-
A deal had been struck, one that John Tracy never expected to have to see through. Any light in a blackout; and at the time, the only thing he much cared about was reaching his quarry.
Satisfied with their bargain, Penny had buzzed new instructions to her driver, and then called another number with a coded message for Mr. Black.
(In a better world, he would have told her his full plans; not simply used a short-range wrist comm signal to upload 'inkblot.kryp.win.RFID.exe' over the newly opened connection. Fortunes of war, though.)
Eventually, they came to Washington. There, the windows darkened automatically, and John had to accept a blindfold.
The car made several dozen turns, some of which might have been executed to confuse his sense of direction. Each time the vehicle swerved, however, his ID chip pulsed. Someone was keeping track, whatever they tried.
After what seemed a long time, the car began to descend, as though they'd entered a long tunnel or off-ramp. Sounds reverberated differently there, betraying an enclosed, echoing space.
Their car drew to a halt, the engine cut off, and John felt the very slight, jouncing shift of someone stepping out. One of the forward doors slammed.
Penelope placed a hand on his knee, and gave him a quick squeeze. He understood; she was back in 'work mode', and he'd best look to himself. Out there, she could not break persona without revealing what they were up to. Her lips brushed his cheek, mouthing,
'Good luck.'
And then the door on his side of the car opened, with attendant noise and pressure changes. His seatbelt was released; John was handcuffed, then drawn from the vehicle and searched, experiencing the full, upright effects of Earth gravity for the first time.
He asked no questions, put up no resistance, more intent on gauging his surroundings than fighting. Weirdly, an electrical impulse flared from the warmth at his wrist to John's retinas, creating a sparking grey blind-sight image of the immediate environment.
Floor and low ceiling, rows of pylons fading into the distance… some kind of grating by his right foot, car at his back. Penny stood silently by; like one of those magnetic-sculpture executive toys, she seemed made of small, shimmering bits. Movement smudged her image, and that of the eight armed men who came up to surround them. To the nearest (her driver, John supposed), she murmured,
"Remain with the car."
…Getting a nod in return. She then placed a guiding hand at John's elbow, and they began to walk, the silent men falling in around them. He'd have known they were present (their footfalls rang loudly against concrete decking) but the silvery-grey retinal image helped him keep track of their gun hands.
John had to remind himself to throw in the occasional stumble. Otherwise, they might have guessed that he could somehow still 'see'.
They walked an exhausting fifty feet, coming at last to a wall which contained square patches of a different texture that he finally identified as doors. These swished quietly open, at some signal or motion that John entirely failed to detect. (Safe bet they were being watched on surveillance cameras, though.)
The lot of them next stepped inside of a very large elevator car. Again, no signal, but the doors shut and the car began to drop. A very long and sobering ride down…
John found himself wondering about the dead guy: J. Random Hacker. Was he festering his way to eternity somewhere down here? Had he thought that he'd worked out a bullet-proof plan to get out, again? Whatever… Soon enough, John figured he'd probably get a chance to ask him.
At the bottom floor, by some sort of gate, he was once again searched; much more roughly, this time. Suit jacket, wrist comm, belt and shoes were removed, and he was scanned top to toe with metal detectors and a powerful Electrical Conduction Interference Device (set much closer to 'hurt like hell' than 'zap'). The searchers detected nothing more sinister than his ID chip, which they made sure to wipe with a few swift charge bursts. John was left in the dark for about three minutes, forced to rely upon Penelope for navigational cues. He was extremely relieved when the chip suddenly warmed and his 'vision' returned.
More walking, until they came to a small, cold room, with what seemed to be a window or mirror in the wall opposite the door, and a single chair. He was quickly resituated, seated and cuffed to the chair, which turned out to be metal, but not bolted to the floor. Good to know, because information like that could turn out to be important.
The ceiling appeared to be formed of acoustic tile… divided into squares, at any rate. The deck was smooth, with a slight declivity leading to a stained floor drain. Great. Nice, morbid touch, that.
One of his guards yanked the blindfold off on the way out. Penelope, too, was drawn away, carefully not looking at him.
As expected, the chair was uncomfortable, the wall square was an observation mirror, and it took awhile for things to get started. Whoever the guy was, he'd obviously read the FBI's invaluable 'How to Make Your Guests Feel Welcome and Wanted' handbook. Out of sheer cussedness, John refused to speak first.
To pass the time, he played mental games; battling himself to a draw in two and a half chess matches, before an electronically altered voice issued from the mirror's inset microphone.
"How d'you do, Mr. Tracy. I understand that you have a proposition for me?"
You could say that, yeah.
He nodded.
"I want to trade something I know how to do, for someone you have in custody."
"Ah. The little lady, I take it? Thought she might turn out to be a good investment. Not like the other two. Shame about that, but Stirling does get into his work."
The mirror had become a 3-way split screen. Two of the scenes were static images. Not much recognizable, beyond the Cubs jacket in the top image and… well… he recognized what was left of Denice, too.
Something very badly wanted to happen, but he slammed it back down again, because if he lost his head now, the entire plan was finished. Behind his back, though, John yanked at his cuffs until they tore the flesh beneath.
Drew was in a cell, huddled upon the concrete floor with her head down and her knees drawn up to her chest. More internal upheaval, which he managed to keep to himself. Pretty clearly, she'd been beaten.
"Yeah. That's the one. I need to speak to her."
After all, he might have been seeing a many weeks old, looped video of Autumn crying silently in a prison cell.
A brief, dry chuckle.
"Now, why would I do anything that stupid, Pretty Boy? I control all the communications around here, and I don't like the thought of you plotting with your little hellcat, over there."
Pretty Boy? He flashed back, suddenly, to one of those god-awful, never-ending NASA fundraisers, and the government photo-op that had preceded it.
Holy shit. What's-his-name, the Texan: with all those… 'Why are we wasting this Nation's hard-earned money on worthless space shots and pretty faces?' jibes… Stennis. Bastard, son-of-a-bitch lying murderer.
Aloud, though…
"She isn't much use to anyone, dead. The only way you can prove she's worth bargaining for is by letting me speak to her. Otherwise, no deal."
Again, the dry laugh.
"Too bad you're about as trustworthy as a double-headed rattlesnake, Pretty Boy; you're an interesting fellow. All right… you're on a live mike. Talk to the little lady."
The picture seemed to jump slightly, refreshing to a more current shot. He said, after a moment,
"Drew."
The huddled figure looked wildly up and around, revealing a terribly bruised face.
"Tracy…?" She whispered, with evident difficulty.
His girlfriend (no… not anymore; he had a wife, now)… Start again: Drew forced herself to stop crying.
" 'Sup, loser?" She asked him.
"Not much. Enjoying the hospitality of a mutual friend. You okay?"
She sniffled, fussed at her tangled hair, but nodded.
"Yeah… pretty much. Can… could I see you?"
"Soon. Give me a minute to work some stuff out, and I'll get right back to you."
She bit her bloodied and swollen lower lip. Then,
"Promise?"
If he had to cross hell to do it.
"Yeah. Promise."
The video scene jumped again, returning to its muted setting.
"Satisfied, little fella?" The electronic voice inquired.
Once you're dead, absolutely.
"She'll do. I assume that she hasn't been allowed to actually see you? Doesn't know where she really is?"
"As I said, Pretty Boy, I'm not stupid; motivated by a different agenda, is all. Just like you."
Uh-uh, dammit. Nothing like me. …And that one's going to cost you.
"Good. Then you can have her blindfolded and released, at a place of my choosing, after proof of which I'll access an available computer and multiply your funds by whatever factor you care to name."
Round one of the negotiations were now concluded, with his first offer deemed unacceptable.
"Try again, Mr. Tracy. How about you teach my computer experts how to work this 'duplication exploit', and then I let your hellcat out of her cage?"
"Two reasons."
John shifted a bit in the cold metal chair. His back was having a hell of a time adjusting to Earth gravity.
"First, I don't trust you to let her go once you've gotten what you want. I'm not stupid, either… Stennis. Second, even given a cliff-notes computer manual, your trained monkeys couldn't handle all the necessary manipulations. Not enough upstairs."
The name, deliberately used, provoked a sudden, violent response. The door opened behind him, and someone raced up to first club him repeatedly, then kick the chair over. All at once, John was sideways on the floor, with blood in his mouth and bright spots flashing in his eyes, one arm caught between concrete and chair edge. His assailant stepped hard on the other side of the chair.
From behind the half-silvered mirror, Stennis said,
"Couple of things we need to get straight from the outset, Pretty Boy. One: I'm in charge here, and you stay alive only so long as I feel like letting you breathe. Two: I don't have to just kill her. I know how much you'd hate to see that pretty lady turned back over to Stirling. So, from now on, the only thing I want to hear out of you is… 'Yes, sir'… you disrespectful little shit. Understood?"
Go to hell.
"Well? I got plenty of talented 'specialists' on retainer, Pretty Boy; for you and her, both."
The pressure on his trapped arm had grown to near breaking force. Must… really have… pissed the guy off. If it was a guy. John didn't turn his head to look, just in case his tormentor was Penny, and an unexpected glance led her to pull a punch, thus betraying herself. Hidden aces were only good as long as they stayed in your sleeve.
"Yeah… understood."
"Now we're getting someplace. The smart move," Stennis continued, as his hired muscle righted the chair, "would be to fold. Just get whatever I can pry outta you by force, then kill you both and cut my losses. But… you've got to take risks to get anywhere in life, and this is a great work, Pretty Boy; the most important in mankind's history. Except your type are too blinded by greed and technology to see the beauty of it all. This is humanity's redemption we're talking about: apure and reclaimed Earth and a brand new race of men."
Uh-huh. And you're an effing lunatic.
But maybe that would work to his advantage. Irrational people, prodded hard enough, tended to make useful errors. He said,
"Once… the girl's been freed, we can get startedwith funding your 'vision'…sir."
"Of course. Everything and everybody has a price, little fella. Just a matter of figuring out what motivates them. In your case, all it took was catching hold of the right girl."
A few details were settled, and then John was once more allowed to speak with Drew. She'd gotten up, and was limping anxiously around her cold, barren little cell, hugging herself.
"Hey," he said, causing her slightly to jump.
"You, again, Tracy?"
"Yeah. I just keep turning up. Listen, Drew: in a couple of minutes, two men are going to show up take you from your cell. They won't hur…"
"Why not you? Where are you, John?"
She seemed about to cry, again. Very aware of handcuffs, distance and cameras, he said,
"I'm… around. I'm okay, but I've got to stay for awhile. Stuff to do, you know? But, anyhow, the men will take you out of here, blindfolded. I've given them coordinates for the police station inPhiladelphia where we bailed… um… where Rick was locked up, that time. I know the desk sergeant, over there. She owes me a few favors, and I'll call up in an hour or so to be sure you made it, and that your escort isn't still hanging around. Drew, stay there. Cause a disturbance and get arrested, if you have to, but don't move without the signal, got it?"
Her face had changed.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "John, I'm so sorry…!"
Although she couldn't see him, her former boyfriend shook his head.
"Not your fault. I got sloppy, and stuff caught up with me. Just follow the plan, okay?"
She nodded, blowing a bruised and tear-stained kiss in the camera's direction.
The men did come, and his girlfr… Drew allowed herself to be hooded, then escorted from the cell. John waited, still bound to a chair, for what seemed like a full rotation of the galactic center. Then…
"My men report that they've reached the station and kicked your hellion onto the sidewalk. And… she's inside. Give me the number, and I'll get the desk officer on speaker phone. But understand sumthin', Pretty Boy; say the wrong thing, and I torch the place, then reveal everything I know about your father at a Capitol Hill press conference."
John gave a short, impatient shrug.
"At this point…sir… you don't have much to worry about. I'm not going to do anything that might endanger her safety." As Stennis surely knew.
The number was given, and the call went through; an audio-only connection.
"Precinct seven, how can I help you?"
"Sergeant Chavez?"
"Speaking… hang on, Sir. (Well, get her some water and first aid, then take the report! Dammit, have I gotta think of everythin', around here?) Yeah: sorry.Precinct seven, what's up?"
"Hey. It's me. Just wanted to know if a friend of mind has arrived, yet. Female, white; late twenties. Sort of battered. Probable domestic abuse."
He heard a chair squeak as Sergeant Chavez rose and padded around her desk for a better look.
"Speak of the devil! Pelkowski's takin' a report and bandagin' her up, right now. I'll call in another female officer and the paramedics. You comin' in ta get her, John? John…?"
He didn't quite know how to answer that, or to deal with the sudden emotion that rose up, threatening to choke off reason and certainty.
"I… um… somebody will. Do me a favor, please, sergeant, and let her stay for awhile? She's pretty shaken up."
"Yeah. I can see that. Keeps askin' about 'cha, too. Okay, long as she don't want to file no charges, we'll hold off doin' anything till your people arrive. But this ain't no bed-and-breakfast, know what I mean?"
Sergeant Chavez was a distant cousin of Denice's (whose rambling family appeared to have colonized most of the tri-state area), with allof his friend'sattendant warmth and charm.
"Sure do, Sergeant. Someone will be along, with a 'message' for you. That's who she goes with. And, thank you."
Okay. One less concern. Wished that he could have been there to help calm the girl… but, again; emotion was the enemy of a clear head, and he had a few things left to do. He couldn't afford to be distracted.
The first matter seen too, he was allowed a bit of food and water, and a 30-second visit to the head. By the time he'd been escorted back to his own cell, someone had wheeled in a computer work station; desk, power cords and all. His ID chip set up a slow burn that matched John's own impatience.
"Gotta tell you, Tracy," Stennis informed him, from behind the safety of his mirror, "There's a team of hackers hooked in via LAN, watching everything you do. First move they don't like, the plug gets pulled, and you die. Got it?"
"Sir, yes sir," John muttered, as his escorts fastened him to the chair with a set of leg irons. Nice computer, though. Flat screen monitor, projection keyboard and a highly modified box with more speed and processing power than your average university mainframe. Had his situation not been so serious, John would have fallen in love. Back to business, though…
He hadn't expected a very deep interface, but something odd happened when he logged on; just as if he'd taken hold of a cyberlink, John found himself pulled 'inside', facing infinite arrays ofneon data, and a wide telnet portal to the shifting, glowing universe beyond.
He was drawn through the port by a sudden torrent of lavender qubits. Passing the blazing firewall and grim anti-viral sentries, John's consciousness was thrust forth into cyberspace. Stennis' hackers hovered there, seeming about as brisk and alert as a trio of Easter Island Moai.
Just for the hell of it, John tracked all three of them back to their entry points, then took over and reformatted their hard-drives; erasing absolutely everything. No more troubles from that quarter…
In the next partial eye-blink,at a source he'd readied much earlier, 'bitstorm.kryp.win.http.exe' was unleashed like lightning from a funnel cloud.
But Inkblot struck first. A mass call went out over wireless networks and blue tooth connections, dialing the cell phones of each Red Path lieutenant in Stennis' data base. As soon as he or she answered, the virus jumped to their ID chip, and thence to those of anyone nearby. Inkblot overwrote nearly a hundred thousand chips in less than a full second, causing them now to transmit:
"Red Path operative seeks burly cellmate for companionship, long walks in the exercise yard, and good times. Ready for a thirty years-to-lifetime commitment, and yours for the taking, Sweet-pea. Come and get it!"
Police scanners and security gates all over the world went completely berserk. The deluge of citizen's arrests that day nearly outnumbered the official variety.
Bitstorm had gone to work, as well. The virus mailed itself as an important-seeming document, instantaneously reaching every computer networked to Stennis' server. It got in, 'forced-up' and blinded the operating systems of each victim, and created a malicious virtual computer to take their place. There was worse to come. Each zombie machine now downloaded copies of all its files to the FBI, stamped with John's old ASCII graffiti tag: the shield and 'S'.
Inkblot to put them in jail… Bitstorm to make certain they stayed there, and that Stennis was absolutely and forever branded. As a last, flip-off gesture (before the glass broke and the bullets hit) he thought-coded: "All your base are belong to us!"
…and had the phrase stream endlessly across each and every Red Path computer. Didn't take much to throw him back out into the real world again, though. Just a few small pieces of lead.