Brainjack by Brian Falkner

Author:Brian Falkner [Falkner, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781921720970
Publisher: Walker Books Australia
Published: 2013-08-21T04:00:00+00:00

“Any progress?” Jaggard asked, and his tone was not chirpy. He leaned forward on his elbows, staring across the desk at Sam and Dodge. He had called them into his office the moment they arrived at work.

“Nothing yet,” Dodge answered for them. “We put the terrorists’ hard drives through every kind of test, including spectro-magnetic analysis and we got nothing. They’re as clean as the day they were manufactured.”

“Is it possible that someone replaced the drives?”

Dodge shook his head. “Forensic examination of the screws and the cable ends says no. These are the original drives. They have just been zeroed.”

Jaggard nodded. “That pretty much describes their owners as well. Zeroed.”

“What do you mean?” Sam asked. “What’s wrong with them?”

“We’re not yet sure,” Jaggard answered. “They are both in a deep coma. Looks like a massive brain aneurysm. The problem is that the CAT scans don’t show any evidence of it. Whoever did this to them has access to drugs or some kind of radiation equipment that we can’t begin to imagine.”

“Would the CIA have that kind of stuff?” Dodge asked.

“I don’t know,” Jaggard said. “You want to run over there and ask them?”

“What about the neuro-headsets?” Sam asked. “Any chance you could induce some kind of brainwave that could cause this kind of damage?”

“First thing we thought of,” Jaggard said. “Had experts running tests on them all day. Worst they’ve come up with so far is to induce a mild headache by overloading the audio channels.”

“So they’re safe?” Dodge asked.

“Better be,” Jaggard said, “considering the Oversight Committee has taken Swamp Witch’s advice and is insisting that we start training on neuro, effective immediately.”

“Cool!” Sam couldn’t help blurting it out.

“You won’t be so happy when your brain explodes,” Dodge said.

“We’ll all be on them,” Jaggard said. “Here and at Cheyenne. We’re not going to get caught out again.”

Jaggard pushed a copy of the local paper, the San Jose Mercury News, across the desk to Sam.

“You heard about this spam thing?”

Dodge nodded, but Sam shook his head.

“Happened while you were in Chicago.”

“SPAM CANNED” was the newspaper headline.

Sam scanned the article quickly. Apparently, a gradual reduction in the amount of spam around the world had turned suddenly into a full-blown collapse.

“Spam servers around the world have been targeted and shut down,” Jaggard said. “I want you on it. Find out who’s behind the attacks.”

“Who cares?” Dodge said with a laugh. “They’re spammers. Let ’em burn.”

“The day before it was online gaming sites,” Jaggard said.

“You think the attacks are related?” Sam asked.

“Possibly, probably, who knows?” Jaggard said. “What I want to know is what’s next? What are they planning for tomorrow? As long as they’re doing good deeds then nobody really cares. But what defines good? As they – whoever ‘they’ are – see it. What if they decided at election time that they didn’t like one particular candidate, would they crash all the support websites? Worse, would they hack the election software and rig the election?”

“Now you’re giving me ideas,” Dodge said.

Jaggard ignored him.

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