That could only mean that the programme was…
…alive.
She whispered softly.
Why then, Claudia mused, did she feel so pissed off? And it came to her, a feeling of frustration, and anger: to create something so brilliant, to be involved in a project of such magnitude, ground-breaking, and then to have it snatched away and taken to some secret Government depository. To be placed in a strong box and hidden for all eternity! It was like creating a work of art and then hanging it in a damp cellar, never to be seen by anybody.
The Chimera Programme could be the ultimate weapon in the fight against terrorism… Chimera was self-learning, intuitive, could find out multiple encrypted computer trails, simultaneously, even the most heavily fortified mainframes could not hide from Chimera. Terrorists worldwide could not hide their computer activities as Chimera could; scan, decode, extract, and then send every scrap of data back to the relevant government agencies, in whatever country the tracked computer was located without anyone knowing that it was there, and all within seconds… But no. The British Government had other ideas for this breakthrough in virus programming, and that was to hide it away, because the politicians and bureaucrats were afraid of it. Were terrified of it falling into the hands of the very people being hunted. Terrorists…
And she could still remember Ezra’s words, when he had contacted her. Claudia shivered.
She had complied with his wishes…
Copying the entire blueprint had been the easy part; getting them to Ezra had been where the real difficulty lay.
Don’t ever call me un-resourceful, she mused.
Claudia smiled,emotions on her face conflicting, and she rubbed at her tired eyes. She knew that the Chimera Programme was a tip-top secret, and the top brass at the facility had the security so tight, not even a mouse could fart without them knowing about it. But what the hell, Chimera was almost ready, and she would be able to have a long, long, well-earned-rest.
Her duty to humanity, and Ferran & Cardini, and Ezra, was nearly complete.
Claudia Dax thought all these thoughts as she stared at the ceiling. Her hand came up, ran through her long auburn hair, and then she heard something; not so much a noiseas a single high-pitched note on the very edge of her hearing…
Claudia frowned, and then sat up.
The sound was coming from the living quarters of her apartment. She leaned over the edge of the bed and peered through the connecting doorway to the other room; she saw a glow from one of her terminals. She didn’t remember leaving it on. In fact, she knew she had not left it on.
And the terminal was protected. Electronically. Her own code. Her own sophisticated firewalls to intercept hackers, which she had tested by attempting to hack her own system; she had found it impossible. That meant that someone had hacked it, but that was highly unlikely. It must have been accessed; either remotely from somewhere else in the huge facility, or someone had entered her apartment. Claudia Dax shivered.
She jumped off the edge of the bed, looked quickly around, and picked up a heavy looking bronze sculpture from her dressing table. She had purchased it, after much deliberation, from a rare weekend break to Edinburgh, and was now thankful that she had.
She hefted the makeshift weapon.
It would make a very good weapon…
Claudia crept towards the open doorway. The light from the terminal grew brighter. Her grip grew tighter around the slender piece of sculpted bronze; her gaze flickered from the doorway to the head of the bronze. She made a concerted effort to control her breathing and her racing heartbeat.
Why would somebody be inside her private apartment? Why would somebody from the facility be spying on her? Unless they knew.
Suddenly she went cold.
And then something hit her — with the force of a sledge hammer in the face. If they had discovered that shehad been the one to copy the blueprints and pass them on to Ezra… Then they would want to know why?
They would be extremely harsh with her, and would certainly not thank her.
Claudia reached the doorway. Peered cautiously around the frame. And saw — nothing.
The terminal screen was blank; a bright blue with only a flashing red triangle. Claudia’s eyes fixed on this because it was a symbol that she had never seen on the terminal before — and it was herprivate terminal; she was the only person who could give it commands. It was her own from the ground up; including all of the software.
Claudia stepped across the threshold, moved towards the terminal, her gaze sweeping left and right, hand still gripping the bronze sculpture tightly. Fear had dried her mouth, she had difficulty swallowing; the thought of Kirill’s Big Boys possibly suspecting her of the Chimera blueprints’ leak was there, a foreboding of a realityof particularly nasty proportions just waiting to surprise her.
The red triangle sprang to life, a black cursor started to flash in the middle of it;
# Hello Claudia Dax.
Claudia stood motionless, staring at the screen, a frown on her face. She shook her head and sat down, placing the bronze sculpture down on the top of the workstation, and typed her fingers a blur across the keyboard.
# Who are you? How did you get past my firewalls?
# It’s not important who I am. The important thing is that I know who you are. I would like to thank you Miss Dax — you have done a remarkable job in creating Chimera; I must congratulate you on a superb piece of programming and I give you full credit. Your scripts stand out from all the other gibberish I’ve seen. Tell me — where did you learn such a skill?
# Why should I tell you anything? What’s to stop me from shutting this terminal down and informing this facility’s cyber security team?
Claudia sat back, staring at the blank screen, and reached for the comm. But something was strangely wrong, and the IP address from where the message was coming from was being blocked; somebody had to be re-routing the message around the globe to mask its place of origin. She felt annoyed, and started to punch in the code for security as the following text appeared on her terminal. # I suggest you don’t do that if you want to live.
Claudia’s fingers halted, her stare moving from the screen to the comm. in her hand and back again. Were they watching her? Were they watching her now?
Damn — was there somebody in her apartment?
She picked up the sculpture and spun around.
But there was nobody there. She was completely alone. She lightly bit her bottom lip.
Sweat tickled the small of her back under her pyjamas. # I am giving you this information because you are the one who created Chimera; I am giving you this information because you are the only one who can possibly stop it…
Your programming skills are world class, but you will need every ounce of this skill to stop a catastrophic act of terrorism being carried out by the programme you created…
Claudia stared. Her jaw dropped.
Holy shit, she thought, this can’t be real. Chimera — terrorism? She typed:
# What do you want? And why is my life in danger? # Listen carefully — Professor Kirill knows that you leaked the blueprints. Because of the leaks and several other factors concerning the re-location of the facility where the final countdown and implementation of the Chimera Programme will take place, the complex you are now located in will be destroyed. At least half of all the employees involved within your unit are to be terminated — you have no idea how high the stakes, being played by people who employ you, are — it would appear though, that Kirill’s agenda is at odds with the very highest echelons of Government.