Rogue by Mark Walden

Author:Mark Walden [Walden, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2011-06-09T18:30:00+00:00

‘Thank you for your assistance, Miss Brand,’ Nero said, ushering Laura and the other two girls out of the core room. ‘You have helped to prevent a tragedy today, but now I need you to rejoin your fellow students.’

‘But we want to help,’ Laura said as Nero beckoned the two guards from outside.

‘I understand,’ Nero said as the guards approached. ‘I will keep you informed of any developments concerning Mr Malpense.’

‘You can’t kill him,’ Laura said angrily. ‘It’s not his fault. He’s as much a victim in this as anyone.’

‘Miss Brand . . . Laura, I will do everything in my power to avoid that, you have to believe me,’ Nero said, looking her straight in the eye. ‘We all owe Otto a great deal, and I am not about to forget that. Do you understand?’

Laura looked at him for a moment and then nodded sadly.

‘Good,’ Nero said. ‘Please do not discuss the details of what has happened here with any of the other students. They will all learn of H.I.V.E.mind’s return soon enough, but I would rather announce it properly than have rumours spreading.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Laura said quietly.

Nero watched as the girls left the room, the doors hissing shut behind them.

‘There has to be an alternative,’ he said with a frown as he turned back to face the Professor, Cypher and H.I.V.E.mind. ‘Some way of removing Overlord without killing Otto.’

‘I truly wish there was,’ H.I.V.E.mind said, ‘but from past experience we have learnt that once Overlord asserts control of a human consciousness there is no chance of saving them. Number One was not strong enough to prevent the process and he had normal neurophysiology. The unique architecture of Otto’s brain will, I fear, simply make him even more vulnerable.’

‘There may be a way,’ Cypher said. ‘We did make it possible for Overlord to be transferred from one system to another, even if we ensured that it was a procedure that he could not perform by himself.’

‘The final protocol,’ Nero said quickly.

‘Indeed,’ Cypher replied with a nod. ‘Slightly modified, it could be used to initiate a command that would force Overlord to transfer itself out of Malpense. With no other suitable host to jump to, it would be destroyed. It could be done with a directed energy pulse that would contain an encoded version of the protocol, but for it to be sufficiently powerful to guarantee success it would almost certainly cause fatal neural feedback. There would be a significant risk that the boy would not survive.’

‘What would you need?’ Nero asked warily; the only other alternative they had was to simply execute Otto, and a small chance of saving him was better than none at all.

‘The original code for the final protocol – Xiu Mei’s medallion,’ Cypher said, ‘and access to your Science and Technology department.’

The medallion that Cypher referred to was what he had been attempting to retrieve when he had first attacked the school. Nero had one half on a chain around his neck, but Wing had the other half.

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