Li Na’s thoughts suddenly drifted to the one person she most wished was still with her. Someone she barely knew but was the reason she was still alive. A man who had saved her from the clutches of agent Qin and allowed her to escape. A man who she was sure had lost his life in the process.
She could still see his face. With his dark hair and broad shoulders, the American soldier pulling her through the damp tunnel, trying to escape Qin’s men.
10
Surrounded by shelving units and computer hardware, John Clay eased himself into a chair in Lee’s lab and moved closer to the screen. He motioned affirmatively to Lee who then accepted the incoming video call. Appearing immediately onscreen, Caesare and Borger’s tired faces seemed to be further highlighted by a dirty, dusty wall behind them.
“Looks like you guys are enjoying your new digs,” mused Clay.
“It’s like the Hilton. Will and I are headed to the spa.”
Next to him, Borger frowned with disappointment. “I’d settle for a vending machine.”
“Don’t mind him,” Caesare chided. “That’s just the caffeine withdrawal talking. Soon we’ll have him on this delicious coffee.” He raised a mug in front of the screen and took a sip. It was all he could do to keep from grimacing. “Okay, maybe it’s not all that funny.”
“Well at least you’re both in good spirits,” Clay offered.
“How could we not be? We’re in paradise.” Caesare’s eyes turned to Lee’s image on their screen. “Hey, kid. Welcome aboard.”
“Thanks, Mr. Caesare.”
“So, how you feeling, Clay?”
“Better. The water seems to be helping.”
“You don’t know the half of it. Wait until you’re swimming around for a while out here.”
Clay peered curiously at the screen. “What do you mean?”
Caesare touched his side. “No more pain.”
“At all?”
“Nope. Whatever this water is absorbing from that alien ship is amazing.”
Borger nodded solemnly. “Maybe too amazing.”
“What do you mean?” Clay asked.
“Commander Lawton is worried that whatever’s in those plants may be too good to be true. That there could be a caveat. A big one.”
Clay shook his head. “Any other good news?”
Caesare grinned. “Yeah. As long as by good you mean troubling.”
He nodded to Borger who cleared his voice. “It, uh, looks like our Chinese friends don’t like to give up.”
Clay’s brow furrowed. “Meaning?”
“They’re trying to find Li Na Wei. And this time, they’re pulling out all the stops.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m in one of their systems.”
“And they don’t know?”
“Not yet. When they found me last time, we were breaking into the same servers to get cell tower data. They then hacked my system but not before I tunneled back to them using their own packets to transfer a piece of my code. Which opens a secondary connection back to me with the same packet ID. Unless they’re reading binary at the packet level—”
“Okay, okay. I believe you, Will,” Clay interrupted.
Next to Clay, Lee whispered the word “wow” under his breath.
“The point is,” Caesare said, “they want her. Bad. They must know what she’s carrying.”
Borger nodded. “They’re looking everywhere. Electronically and visually. They’re taking images of the entire area and doing a pixel search, just like I am.”
“Can we find her first?”
“I doubt it. They have far more resources. Their urgency is another reason why they haven’t noticed my code in their system yet. I’m only watching their results and communication. If I tried to get any real data, they’d see it.”
Clay rubbed his chin. “I can’t believe they haven’t found her yet. A teenage girl can only move so fast.”
“It helps that their satellite technology is not quite up to our standards yet. But they’re flying dozens of aircraft over the area, taking ultra-high-resolution pictures.”
“How is she eluding that?”
“Probably some brains and a hell of a lot of luck,” Caesare said.
“The problem is,” Borger added, “luck doesn’t last.”
“No, it doesn’t.” After a quiet moment, Clay leaned back in his chair, thinking. “There is one more possibility.”
“She’s not alive.”
“Correct.”
“But they would have found her body by now.”
“Probably so,” Clay nodded. “She’s more likely to be alive. And from what I saw, she may be scared but she’s also very bright. And she knows that they’re looking for her.” Clay suddenly paused, remembering what she had with her: the metal case of vials and a leather bag she carried on her back. Both had been left by her father. Clay was starting to wonder what else the General had left his daughter.
“There’s something else,” Caesare said, interrupting. “Commander Lawton isn’t just afraid of what this bacterium can do. She’s afraid of what it may have already done. The samples you brought back are acting differently, and if any of that has been passed on to the girl, there may be side effects.”
“What kind of side effects?”
“She doesn’t know yet. But one thing she made very clear is that genetic mutations can be very touchy things.”
Clay returned to his previous thought. “If she has enough resources, where would she go?”
Caesare thought about the question. “I’d get the hell out of Dodge. Staying in China means it’s probably just a matter of time before they find her.”
“So she heads east.”
“I would. Unless she wants to freeze to death. East is also the shortest way out of the country.”
Clay’s face showed a small ray of hope at the thought. “She is smart.”
They all reflected for a long moment until Caesare broke the silence.
“So… how did things go with Alison?”
11
Alison.
“Yes, Sally.”
You not happy.
Alison folded her arms and forced a smile through the wall of glass to where Sally was floating on the other side.
No, she wasn’t happy. In fact, she was angry. Even furious. Furious at the very idea of her having to retract it all. Everything they’d done. Achievements that had literally changed the world. Forever.
Frustrated because retracting their work was the equivalent of telling thousands of peers that they were wrong. Really wrong.
That all the results of the studies were ruined by their own ignorance. And not only was their scientific reputation severely tarnished, they ran the risk of being ignored and branded a laughing stock for the rest of their career. It was the ultimate insult, and to make matters worse, Alison would have to do it herself. Ironically, in science, if one’s assertions had been disproven by someone else, such as a peer, it would have been less shameful. But when you announced it yourself, it was an acknowledgment of just how incompetent you really were.
Of course, none of it was true. IMIS worked, and it worked beautifully. Too beautifully. The problem, literally, was the unforeseen extent of their success. And while Alison wanted to blame both Admiral Langford and Secretary Miller, she couldn’t. Nor could she blame Clay. They all knew the truth behind the danger IMIS now posed both to the team and itself.
There had to be another way.
Even Lee was surprised. He too admitted that there was something in their computer code, in the algorithms, that he didn’t fully understand. Something that allowed the giant machine’s vast array of silicon and copper to achieve more than they ever expected. Whether it was the hardware or software, or the combination, he wasn’t sure. But what he did know, and what they all understood, was that the system could be replicated. The exact hardware could be reassembled, the software studied, and the data copied. IMIS could be reverse engineered until all of its secrets were eventually revealed.