Chapter 14

Joe and his father were watching a game and Vanessa was sitting staring out of the window and yawning when Con returned later that day pushing a utility dolly. Joe immediately turned the TV off and Fenton went to help his friend with the various boxes that he was transporting.

"What you got there, Con?" Fenton asked, almost dropping one box because it was heavier than he expected it to be.

"It's Officer Stanwick's computer. I had one of our IT techies have a look at it and uncovered something that I found interesting, but in order to get it analysed properly I would have had to send it away. Then I remembered that Vanessa's a whiz around these things so I bought it here instead."

Vanessa was already starting to rummage through the boxes and pulled out a keyboard and saw a big box monitor. "You didn't need to bring the entire system, Con, just the tower would have done."

Con shrugged. "What I know about computers you could write on the back of a matchbox."

"What did your IT squint find?" Joe asked.

"Well, it might be nothing, but apparently Officer Stanwick spent a lot of his lunchtimes messing about with a game called 'Pandora'."

"Now that is an interesting coincidence!" Fenton exclaimed.

"That's just what I thought." Con turned to Vanessa, "Do you think you could have a look and see if there's any mileage in it as a lead?"

"Sure thing, leave it with me." She had already unpacked most of the PC and was working on the cables.

"Good girl."

"Did you find anything out about Nancy?" Fenton asked.

"Not an awful lot I'm afraid. She seems to have covered her tracks well. She's not using her own car as I've tracked it to her home, but she's also not rented one."

"Do a search on her father's name." Joe advised. "It's Carson Drew."

"I'll see what I can turn up." Con promised, scribbling in his notebook. "As for where she and Frank might be staying…well, you might as well just get a pin, and stick it in a map. They're not booked in at any of the local hotels, or even the more remote ones outside of town."

Fenton raised an eyebrow. "Or if they are, no one is telling."

"Exactly."

"Stanwick – is he talking?" Fenton asked, shaking his own head in denial, even before the question was leaving his mouth.

"Nope, not a word."

"Let's be honest, we didn't really expect him to spill his guts, did we?" Joe said, "Anymore than we expected your lab guys to turn anything up at Frank's apartment or my car".

"Okay," Vanessa interrupted, "I've got the game up and running, and it's pretty simple. It's one of those where you turn tablets over in a random order and try to remember the pictures on the back, and then match up the twins. The less moves you make, the more points you accumulate. But there is something odd about it. I've taken a brief peek at the properties – and this PC has zilch memory capacity, so it's not helping – and it looks over produced for such a basic program. I'd like to have a closer look, but I need to connect it to my own computer at home which has a higher spec."

"Come on," said Con, "I'll run you home."

"Okay." She pulled the tower free of its wires and handed it to Con. "This is all you needed to have brought with you," she smirked, "still, any exercise is good exercise at your age, I suppose."

Con rolled his eyes at her. "Do not mock what you will become, young lady!"

Frank was sitting in front of Mrs Holliday's computer in the large leather swivel chair. "Don't you think it's just a little bizarre that Mrs Holliday has a computer this powerful?" he quietly asked.

Nancy leaned her elbows on his shoulders so she could get her head next to his and lower her voice. "It depends, doesn't it? Perhaps it's a hobby, or maybe she views it as a necessity. She can use it to keep in touch with her daughters and her friends..."

"…and immerse herself in a world of Nancy Drew stalking." Frank finished impishly with a finger wiggle and a wah-haaa-haaaa!

Nancy swatted at him. "You're only jealous because she's not fixated on you two. But don't get too cocky, she's already got a couple of pictures of you and Joe and she might start adding to them now – just imagine the possibilities," she kissed the top of his head.

Frank was only half listening now. Concentrating. "Look at this," he said.

"What have you found?" Nancy asked, her own mood becoming sober.

Professor Hope lived on campus, so given he died quite some time ago, they will have cleared out any of his belongings, so that's a dead-end trail, however…" he tilted the screen so Nancy could view it properly. "…I've been running a search on the Bayport University website where Professor Hope worked as the Faculty Head of Computer Sciences and stumbled upon their archived news stories section. After his death, they published a eulogy in his honour."

"Does it say what he died of?"

"No, it just says that he died 'suddenly and tragically'. But they said that 'Mr Hope was one of life's true eccentrics' and that just before his death, he had been working on a secret project that he boasted would change the way people worked with IT technology – let us presume that he was meaning the Pandora program?"

"I think that's a safe assumption."

"Well, apparently, a lot of his students were understandably very keen to become involved in helping him with his project. He agreed to allow one of them to have the honour of becoming his assistant, but in order to ensure fairness, he set all the applicants a game, a challenge."

"A challenge?" Nancy asked, surprised.

"Can you believe that it was a treasure hunt in order to find a secret code? The first student to solve it got the internship and the honour of ultimately inputting the code and setting the program in motion."

Nancy's hands tensed and tightened around Frank's shoulders. "So the code is actually out there somewhere for someone to find?"

Frank spun around on the chair, his mouth turning up into a half smile. "It would seem so."

"I wonder if that's how Joe's friendly neighbourhood thugs got hold of it?" Nancy wondered out loud.

Frank shrugged. "Wouldn't surprise me. Either way, the students wouldn't have been too bothered about going after the code once the professor died." He pulled Nancy down onto his lap. "They might not be interested in it any longer, but I am!"

You found something, didn't you?" Joe asked when Vanessa returned with Con in tow. "I can tell by your faces." He was now more comfortable as the oxygen tube had been removed from his face. The Doctor had, however, insisted on Joe retaining the heart monitor and IV for the time being.

"I think that's the understatement of the century!" Con answered for her and held out a piece of paper for Fenton to take.

"What's this?" Fenton asked, unfolding it. His eyes widened in astonishment. "Holy crow!" he muttered.

"What is it?" Joe asked.

Fenton didn't answer, instead he was reading, his eyes moving slowly from one side of the page to another. While taking in what was on the printout, he moved forward and perched himself on the edge of Joe's bed. Eventually, he dropped the paper down and looked at his son.

"What is it?" Joe persisted in asking again.

"Okay, son. Before I tell you what's on this piece of paper, I've got to come clean about something, but you've got to promise me that you won't get over excited, or get angry."

"That sounds ominous…" Joe said, his voice dropping and his face full of alarm.

Fenton sighed and placed his hand on his Joe's leg. "You remember I told you earlier that I'd been to the office to check on Frank's passport while you were asleep?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I didn't exactly tell you the whole story." Joe opened his mouth to say something, but Fenton raised his palm to stop him. "As I was leaving, someone used me for target practice – a sniper – and I kind of…got hit." Fenton flinched, dreading his son's reaction.

"What!? Someone shot at you, at my Dad?" Joe exploded.

"Son, son, calm down, it wasn't anything serious, just a scratch. Look…" He stood up, unbuttoned his shirt and showed his son the bandage on his arm."

"But it could have been serious!" Joe said. "You should have told me – did you both know about this?" he asked, turning on Con and Vanessa.

They both nodded, Vanessa was chewing a nail and Con was doing a fair impression of a pouting teenager.

"What is this? A tag team?" Joe asked, seriously irritated. His heart monitor started to bleep quicker. "We shouldn't be keeping stuff from each other, it's bad enough that Frank's doing it!"

"Joe, you've got to calm down." Fenton said, trying to placate him. "I only didn't tell you because you've been so ill."

"Whatever – for pity's sake!" Joe lay back and tried to catch his breath.

Fenton waited. "You okay?" he finally asked.

"Give me a second," Joe answered, closing his eyes. Through sheer self-control, he started to bring his own heart rate down by taking controlled deep breaths. "Okay," he said, opening his eyes again, "tell me about what's in your hand."

Fenton rubbed his cheek and reluctantly revealed: "It's an email message from Frank…"

Joe held out his hand. "Give it to me," he said the beeping speeding up again.

"Son, I…"

"I said – give it to me!"

Fenton handed it across and Joe turned it around and started reading aloud:

"…Joe and Dad

I realise this is a strange way to contact you, but it was the only safe option open to me.

I today received a threat in the form of video footage to my cell phone of you dad being shot at outside the office. Attached to it was a text telling me to give myself up to those goons who kidnapped Joe or they will continue their attacks on you. I've decided I'm not going to do that and instead trust the both of you to keep yourselves as well at Mom and Aunt Gertrude safe.

I hope you understand that I'm not doing this simply for selfish reasons but I can't explain what I'm doing either. Please don't be too angry. Once I've put things right, I'll be back, but until then, don't try to follow me.

Please, please look after yourselves and watch out for each other and I'll see you real soon. Try not to worry about me, I'm fine. I miss you all.

Frank x…"

Joe turned over the paper automatically to look on the back. "Right…" he said and lay back. "I wish he'd just come home and let us help him," He muttered and closed his eyes again to concentrate on his breathing.

"You two need to be real careful from here on out," Con said. "I'll carry on with the guards on duty outside the room until further notice if Fenton or I aren't able to be here." He addressed Fenton, "and you don't leave this hospital without me accompanying you. Is that agreed?"

"Agreed," they both said simultaneously.

Fenton suddenly inhaled loudly. "I've got to stop Laura and Gertrude from catching that flight tomorrow!" he said. "Laura will hate it, but it'll be better if they carry on with their vacation, that way they're out of harm's way for at least another three weeks. I'll give her a call later."

The tension was still quite high in the room, even though Joe's monitor was showing his heart was once more beating at a normal, regular pace.

Vanessa finally shrugged her coat off and threw it onto the end of the bed. "Would you like to hear what I found out, it's really exciting!…Well, possibly just for me because I'm such an alpha nerd."

Con allowed himself to laugh. "She did get a little worked up," he reported.

Fenton glanced at Joe who was now looking with at least a little interest at Vanessa.

"What did you find out?" Joe asked, his tone flat.

Vanessa ignored it and continued. "Pandora isn't just a game at all, it's so much more than that." She sat down in the chair by the window. "There's a symbiotic software program running concurrently behind it."

"What does that mean?" Con asked, already thoroughly confused.

"Someone's hidden something within the game." Vanessa explained. "I ran some tests and made adjustments so I could predict more easily where images would appear on the tablets, but my changes kept on being repaired. Of course, there are programs out there that will perform auto-fixes, but this is different. It was one pace ahead of me every step of the way. No matter what I did, I couldn't outwit it."

"So what's so exciting about that?" Joe asked, he voice still monotone.

"It's exciting because it's protecting itself. So, I really took the thing apart to try and work out why such a simple kid's game would need such robust armour. What I found was that a secret program is doing the protecting and is hidden beneath the Pandora game. The secret program is some sort of software package that looks only half finished, but all the coding strands are there and ready for the rest to be slotted into place."

"So what's it for?" Fenton asked.

Vanessa shrugged. "That's where I drew a blank. Whoever designed it has knowledge well outside of my spectrum of understanding. I just couldn't break down the programming enough to be able to draw a conclusion, but it's revolutionary in its design and is probably worth a lot of money. Any software company would pull their arms out of their sockets to get at it."

Joe furrowed his brow and looked out the window towards the trees in the distance. It was now dark. Just a little earlier he noticed that there had been a number of workers in reflective yellow jackets moving about the snow edged parking lot, spreading grit onto the road and walkways. Now there was just the one left behind to finish the job. "For good or evil?" he asked suddenly, looking back at his father.

"What do you mean?" Vanessa asked.

"Has it been manufactured for good or evil?"

"Oh…not knowing what the program is designed for makes answering that question difficult."

"Give it your best guess." Joe requested, now making an effort not to sound angry and frustrated.

Vanessa's tongue worried the inside of her cheek as she gave it some consideration. "If I was to make an educated guesstimate, I'd say it could be used to protect websites or games, to fix viruses, prevent piracy maybe? Or of course, it could have been written to perform the entire opposite and cause havoc – but please don't take my word as gospel."

Joe went: "Hmm…" and stared off into the distance again.

"What are you thinking, son?" Fenton demanded to know.

Joe's irritability was starting to wane, replaced instead with interest. "This might also be a bit of a leap, but the 'key' I was quizzed about, what if that's the other half of the program?"

Fenton sighed. "Then we'd have to start appreciating why someone would be so keen to have a chat with your brother."

"Any idea who wrote and designed the game?" Joe asked.

Vanessa shook her head. "No, it's been anonymously done."

Con held up his finger and coughed to get their attention. "It couldn't have been…well…I know this sounds ridiculous, but…could Frank have written it himself?"

Vanessa gave a nervous giggle. "Not wanting to diss the Frankster in any way – he doesn't have the talent for this kind of work. It's too high-tech for him. It's too high-tech for me, truthfully!"

"I agree," said Joe.

Con a-hemmed again. "Given Frank's email, this might not be of much relevance anymore, but…I ran a check on Carson Drew with regard to car rentals and drew a blank. His lawyer's practice leases a fleet of cars for its employees, but they're all insured under the company name so there's no way of knowing who is driving which cars without talking directly to Mr Drew's office. I can make further enquiries if you want me to?"

Fenton considered Con's proposal. "No, let's trust them to know what they're doing for now. Keep tabs on Nancy's phone though, she may use it to make a call at some point and maybe that'll give us a location."

"Doubtful, but I'll do that."