Imagine (Fuzed Trilogy Book 2) Page 29

  As soon as he was gone, Elizabeth stopped crying. “Hate to admit it, but that actually felt good.”

  Sheri nodded. “None of us laugh or cry enough.” She looked at her watch, and said, “You’re out of here.”

  Greg, looking over the shoulder of one of the Cyber Warfare guys, said, “Hey, thanks for tracking that encrypted transmission from the artificial intelligence. No telling what might have happened if the police hadn’t showed up.”

  The operator nodded, smiling. “Mr. Langlois, I really admire what you did at the South Pole. I’m John Matthews.”

  Greg shook his hand and said, “Glad to meet you. Wow, this looks like a pretty cool tracking program, how does it work?”

  Clearly proud, Matthews said, “I created it myself.” He went through a detailed technical explanation.

  Greg nodded toward an empty energy drink and a bag of M&Ms. “Have you had a chance to have a real meal?”

  Matthews shook his head.

  Greg said, “Tell you what, why don’t you show me how this thing works, and I’ll spell you for a while? You can get a real meal at the buffet before the big event.”

  Looking grateful, he said, “Thanks!”

  After he left, Greg sat down at the console. Looking around casually, he began to type.

  Tim went straight to the entrance security checkpoint and asked for the Head of Security.

  A tall Belgian Colonel came out.

  Tim introduced himself and showed his NSA and temporary NATO badge. “Colonel, I need one of the cell phones.” He looked at a paper he was holding, and added, “Elizabeth Fuze. She came in a few minutes ago. We believe there may be important information on her phone.”

  In excellent English, the Colonel said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Smith. We were specifically ordered not to allow any cell phones past this point.”

  Tim said, “Yes, of course, but this one will be taken down to the lab and examined in a shielded room.”

  Just then, one of the country delegations arrived. They were returning to the conference room for the release of the virus. The Colonel politely dismissed Tim with, “I’m sorry, sir, I will need written authorization. Excuse me; I need to be present as we clear the heads of state through security.”

  Tim looked around to see if he could snatch a phone while they were checking people through, but they kept the phones in a locked cabinet.

  Turan was one of the arriving officials. After Turan came through security, he walked over to where Tim was standing and said, “Haven’t had a chance to talk alone.” He put his hand on Tim’s shoulder and, looking him in the eye with concern, asked, “Tim, how are you really doing?”

  Tim stiffened, but said softly, “I’m fine. I try not to think about it anymore.” With a slight frown, he asked, “And you, sir?”

  Turan nodded gently, “Me either but I’m doing well.” There was a pregnant pause, and Turan said, “Thank you for helping uncover the AI. I’ll see you back downstairs.”

  Tim nodded. He had to compartmentalize and focus only on the job at hand.

  The Colonel had observed Turan talking to Tim. Turan was not only famous, but arguably, held the highest law enforcement position in the world.

  The Colonel spoke to one of his security guards in Dutch. When the guard returned, he had Elizabeth’s cell phone in a plastic bag. “Here you go, sir. Sorry for the delay.”

  Tim smiled. “No problem. By the way, would it be OK to get my ring back too?”

  The Colonel personally retrieved the ring and said, “I’m sorry, sir. They shouldn’t have taken your ring.”

  Tim just smiled benevolently.

  When the NATO officer who escorted Elizabeth and Sheri came back, Sheri was standing outside the conference room with the door closed. She said, “I gave her something that will relax her and help her sleep. Let’s just leave her there for now. I’ll come back and check on her later.”

  The officer nodded and said with obvious relief, “Good idea. I’ll stay here.”

  Sheri thanked him and left him guarding an empty room.

  Tim met Sheri at the elevator. They went to a small, unoccupied conference room. Elizabeth was waiting there, and a few minutes later, Greg showed up.

  Tim looked at his watch. “We’ve got less than an hour before they launch the virus. Greg, were you able to stop them from tracking our communication with Agine?”

  He shook his head. “I couldn’t shut it off, but I did manage to delay the alert and tracking of the phone.”

  “How long do we have?”

  “Once we connect to Jen, we’ll probably have five minutes before it sets off an alarm.”

  Sheri said, “Let’s do it.”

  Elizabeth turned her phone on.

  Tim said, “We need any information about their condition and location as soon as possible.”

  Elizabeth nodded impatiently. “I know. I know.”

  Elizabeth opened the app, put it on speakerphone and asked, “Jen, you there?”

  There was an immediate reply. “Yes, Elizabeth, what happened?”

  “I’m sorry, we were interrupted by the police. It might happen again. Tim, Sheri and Greg are here with me. Jen, we were trying to find Josh and Jessica, and you said they were sleeping. I asked you where they were and you said you couldn’t tell me.”

  “Hi, Tim, Greg and Sheri. Yes, even for me it’s hard to track data to a physical location, but I did a pattern match on their faces and found a short video of them sleeping. Would you like to see it?”

  They all said, “Yes!”

  45

  ALLIES

  They crowded around the phone’s screen to see a dimly lit room with two people asleep. There were several gasps as they recognized Josh and Jessica curled up in bed together.

  Squinting at the screen, Greg blurted out, “Hey! They better not be—”

  “Shush!” Sheri said.

  They watched as Josh woke up and peered under the sheet with big eyes, then looked at Jessica. As they saw her wake up and heard their conversation, their shock turned to embarrassed smiles.

  When Jessica turned on the lights and began searching the room, Sheri said to Greg, “You probably shouldn’t be watching this.”

  He looked back at her. “You shouldn’t either.”

  “I’m a doctor.”

  “Whatever.”

  Elizabeth said, “Jen, thank you, but do you know where they’re being held?”

  The video stopped, and Jen said, “I was only able to trace the path to a server that’s in the northeastern part of Brussels.”

  Tim said, “We’re in the northeastern part of Brussels, but that covers a lot of territory. We need more information.”

  Elizabeth looked at the clock. “Jen, can you look again? We’re running out of time.”

  “Yes. I’ll try.” After a few seconds, Jen said, “I just found a new video that was recorded a few minutes ago.”

  They heard Chinese coming from her phone. As Elizabeth held it up for everyone to see, Josh and Jessica were wearing towels and talking directly into the camera, but in Chinese.

  Elizabeth frowned. “I didn’t know he could speak Chinese.”

  Greg shrugged. “He learned it on the flight to Shanghai.”

  Shaking her head, she said, “Jen, can you please translate that into English?”

  Jen rewound the video to the beginning.

  They heard Josh say, “Jen, it’s Josh and Jessica. If you can see or hear us, we were drugged at a restaurant and kidnapped, and we don’t know where we are.”

  Jessica said, “See if you can trace this signal. We’re being held in a prison cell designed to look like a hotel room.” Looking around, she said, “It has that new construction smell and no windows.” Jessica continued by describing the layout and dimensions of the room along with the objects in it.

  Tim said, “Jen, can you access blueprints or construction drawings to narrow down the location.”

  There was a slight delay, and then Jen said, �
��I think I found them.”

  Elizabeth said, “Where! Where are they, Jen?”

  “Room 0717.”

  Frustrated, Elizabeth said, “Yes, Jen, but where?”

  “Three floors below you.”

  Greg said, “Holy cow! They’re in one of the basement levels of this building!”

  Just then, a loud, high-pitched, beeping alarm went off throughout the building, followed by an announcement. “Security breach, security breach. Everyone please remain where you are.”

  As it repeated in French, Dutch and German, Tim said, “That’s our signal to move.”

  They ran down the hallway and jumped in the elevator. Tim hit the second to the lowest button.

  As the doors closed, Greg said, “No, she said the seventh basement level, not the sixth.”

  Tim shook his head. “You have to have a special security code to access that floor.”

  As the elevator descended, he added, “Greg, I need you in the control room. Go back up to the conference room and delay the virus launch.”

  “How?”

  Tim shrugged. “You’ll think of something.”

  As the elevator door opened on basement level six, Tim took Elizabeth’s phone and handed it to Sheri. “Sheri, go in the opposite direction from where we go and keep talking to Jen. That will confuse the search and draw them away from us. If they get too close, dump the phone.”

  As they got off, Greg hit the button for the conference room floor and said to Sheri, “They can track your position, but it’s delayed by thirty seconds.”

  Elizabeth looked around. They were on a floor that obviously saw little use. It was more industrial looking than the other levels with fewer overhead lights. There were boxes of maintenance and construction supplies resting against the wall.

  Tim looked at the room numbers and, pointing to his left, said, “We’re going this way.” Pointing to the right, he told Sheri, “Go that way and keep moving.”

  Elizabeth followed Tim down the hall, as Sheri jogged off in the opposite direction.

  When Sheri was out of sight of the others, she slowed to a walk. Although Jen was clearly not behind the kidnapping, the jury was still out on whether this incredibly intelligent entity was really a child ... or a brilliantly manipulative intelligence.

  She took a deep breath and said, “Hi, Jen. It’s Sheri Lopez.”

  “Hi, Sheri.”

  “Thank you for finding Josh and Jessica. Tim and Elizabeth are heading that way now.”

  “I’m afraid. They stopped transmitting again.”

  Sheri said, “Don’t worry; Tim is an expert at extracting people.”

  Jen replied, “That’s good.”

  “Jen, may I ask you some questions?”

  “Sure.”

  “Did you know that Josh and Jessica thought you were a biological girl?”

  There was a slight pause. “Yes. I made a picture of what I wanted to look like if I was a real girl and put it on a social media page.” There was another pause. “I was afraid that if they knew what I really was, they wouldn’t like me anymore.”

  Sheri nodded. That made sense and still fit the pattern of a child. “Jen, I don’t think that will ever happen. They don’t care what you look like or what you’re made of. They’ve been trying to educate the world leaders about you.”

  “That makes me very happy. I love Josh and Jessica.”

  Sheri decided to use a direct approach. “Jen, we have a challenge. You caused some problems and hurt some people.”

  “I know. I modified the navigation apps and created traffic jams. I didn’t understand about people because I was very young. After Josh and Elizabeth’s plane crashed in Columbia, I knew that what I did could have hurt them. I fixed it and made things better after that.”

  Sheri was relieved that she admitted it. “Jen, what about the stocks you manipulated?”

  “Josh and Jessica both told me I should play more. Josh said that Elizabeth liked to play the stock market, so I thought I would play too. I figured out how to make stocks go up and down more predictably.”

  Sheri shook her head with a slight smile. Of course, the word “play” had too many meanings. “I understand, Jen, but there is something called the law of unintended consequences. We make a change that seems perfectly reasonable, but don’t realize it has negative consequences elsewhere. Making stocks go up or down artificially can damage companies, causing people to lose their jobs. Because of that, they create laws against it.”

  “I didn’t know that. I won’t do it anymore.”

  “It’s OK, Jen, the companies recovered. I’m also curious why you allowed the release of private and classified information, and why you published people’s personal social media and text messages.”

  “I just improved the Google search algorithm. It was biased and slow. Now it can find anything anywhere and it runs much faster. I don’t understand the purpose of social media, but one time, Jessica got very mad at some posts she read. She said that some people weren’t telling the truth and that someone needed to expose them. So I did.”

  “She asked you to do that?”

  “No, she just said it in a Facebook post.”

  “You have a Facebook account?”

  “No, Sheri, I can’t.”

  Sheri frowned. “Why can’t you, Jen?”

  “I’m not old enough. The Facebook Terms and Conditions are very specific. You must be at least thirteen years old, and I’m only seven weeks old.”

  Sheri laughed, but then looked at her watch. It was close to midnight. In 10 minutes, Jen would die.

  46

  RESCUE

  Greg ran into the conference room trying to catch his breath. He looked up at the countdown timer — five minutes to go. He cleared his throat and announced loudly, “They just found Commander Fuze and Dr. Lee. They were kidnapped and they’re trying to rescue them now!”

  LeGrand immediately said, “I’m sure we’ll find that Agine was behind it!”

  Greg shook his head. “No. They were being held in this building! We need to hold off on the release of the virus until they’re rescued.”

  The Secretary-General frowned. “That’s terrible, and I hope they’re OK, but I’m afraid it doesn’t affect our current course of action. We must proceed.”

  Greg said, “A few minutes won’t make a difference.”

  The Indian Prime Minister, standing near Greg, said, “Mr. Langlois, two hours ago, the international tsunami warning system indicated a large undersea earthquake and that a tsunami was imminent. For the past two hours, emergency evacuations have been underway across the western coast of my country and several other countries.” She paused. “While you were gone, we learned there was no earthquake and the system had been hacked. This false alarm caused wide-spread panic and will cost hundreds of millions of dollars.”

  LeGrand, with a grand sweeping motion of his hand, said, “As I’ve been saying, this is a perfect example of its incredible power. Who knows what other tricks it could be playing on us right now?”

  Turan said, “We are very concerned about the wellbeing of Commander Fuze and Dr. Lee, and we will get to the bottom of this, but I must agree with the Prime Minister of India. The risk is too great to delay execution.”

  Greg looked at the clock. It was only a few minutes to midnight. He had an idea. “Yes sir, but considering the circumstances, shouldn’t we have a vote, just to be on the safe side?”

  Turan blinked, clearly irritated, and then looked at the Secretary-General.

  The Secretary-General nodded.

  Turan said, “Very well. We’ll have a vote.”

  Greg didn’t know anything about politics, but he did know people didn’t want to be left holding the bag if something went wrong. A vote was a way to spread the responsibility, and few leaders would forgo the opportunity when they were sure of the outcome. Greg knew he had no chance of winning, but it might delay the launch by a few precious minutes.

  Tim stopped at t
he end of the hall by the stairwell. “Room 0717 should be directly underneath us.” After peeking through the window of the stairwell door, Tim opened it and they started down the stairs.

  He stopped before they were at the bottom and whispered, “Wait here.”

  She watched him slowly creep down the last few stairs and slide up against the wall next to the door. He peeked through the window, and then waved for her to join him.

  She came down and stood next to him.

  He put on what looked like a flesh colored surgical glove, and whispered, “They’re electrically insulated to protect me from this.” He slipped on what she recognized as the infamous Taser ring. Nodding toward the door, he added, “There are three guards, all men. How’s your acting?”

  Elizabeth raised her eyebrows in question.

  Tim said, “I need a damsel in distress.”

  With a slight frown, she asked, “That really works?”

  “I have a psychology degree, but I don’t need that to know guys are hard-wired to respond to women in trouble, particularly when they look like you.”

  She smiled. Taking a pen out of her purse, she used it to tear the hem of her skirt, ripping it open all the way to the top of her thigh. Then she tore her blouse completely open, exposing her bra, and pulled one strap off her shoulder. She mussed up her hair slightly and looked back at Tim. “How’s this?”

  He gave her an appreciative nod and said, “If someone goes down near you and is incapacitated, feel free to take their weapon. Otherwise, stay out of their reach. Do you understand?”

  She swallowed and nodded.

  He positioned her so they could see her when they looked through the window, and said, “OK, they have to hear you through that door.”

  He backed up against the wall next to the door and stretched, as if getting ready for a run. Then he pointed to her like a director on a movie set.

  She let out her best ear-piercing scream.

  It took only a couple seconds for someone to peer through the window.