Ixeos: Book One of the Ixeos Trilogy by Jennings Wright

Author:Jennings Wright
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781482060492
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2013-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

It was a very low key night. Most of the residents were out on missions and there were only a dozen or so around the long tables. Neahle enjoyed the roast chicken more than usual and was happy to go to bed early. She wished fervently for a bathtub in which to soak her sore behind, but took a few aspirin and snuggled down with a sigh into the soft bunk.

Abacus called them into his office the next day; they found him sitting, dressed in his usual roguish fashion, behind the large desk. His face was pale but he greeted them with a smile.

“Sorry for yesterday…” he began, but Neahle interrupted.

“Please don’t apologize. I know you did it to save us time, but I can’t imagine how difficult it was for you. Let’s just move on, okay?” She smiled and would have hugged him if he’d been on her side of the desk.

With a small nod, Abacus continued. “Right, then. So what’s next?”

Clay explained his change in plans and watched as Abacus steepled his fingers and brought them to his mouth, thinking.

“There are pros and cons to it, although I have to admit, it makes sense. We could waste a lot of time. But the main auction houses are in big cities—London and New York, here in Paris. It’s possible some were sold in Berlin, I suppose. It is also possible that any sales we find weren’t the latest ones.”

“What do you mean?” asked Neahle.

“Certainly there will be paper records of anything sold until, I don’t know, the ‘80s or so. Until the age of computers. But it’s likely that the records after that were electronic. So maybe we find the sale of a machine in 1972, but then the same machine was sold in 1995 and we don’t know it.” Abacus picked up a pen and started doodling on his desk pad. “Then we’re in the same situation as we’d be going to museums.”

“Except that there would be copies, back-ups, right?” Clay said, leaning forward. “They weren’t all stored in a cloud; there would be physical data storage.”

“A cloud?” Abacus asked, confused.

Clay laughed. “Yeah, new thing in the twenty-first century. Data storage in a cloud. Don’t ask me what that means, that’s Marty’s territory. But surely the auction houses would keep back-up data storage in the event of a crash, don’t you think?”

“But the computers were killed by the EMP,” Abacus said.

“So we take the hard drives and give them to Marty. The computer squad can search them at the vault. Even if it takes days or weeks, it’ll be faster and safer than traipsing around all over the world. And Neahle might want to pay the cells a visit… Maybe Rebel Seven?”

Neahle punched him and Abacus raised his eyebrows. “I’m missing something,” he said.

“Neahle and Gilles…” Clay began.

“Clay!” Neahle said, punching him again. “We’re friends,” she said, turning to Abacus.

“Ah… Well, I do like the idea of searching data bases. So let’s do this. We’ll go to Christies in London.

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