The Rogue Code by Terry Marchion

Author:Terry Marchion
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Terry Marchion

10

C

hristopher sat at his uncle’s desk in the lab, Squeaks, Tenny, Celeste, and Zach gathered around him on folding chairs. Jonas stood apart from the group, chewing on a thumbnail. They all wore a look of shock.

“That news is bad. Real bad.” Squeaks said to nobody in particular.

They had entered the lab to catch the end of a news program Desmond had on in the background. It had showed empty motorways due to a lack of confidence in the autonomous systems after the latest failure. People had chosen to not leave their homes out of fear, despite the government’s assurances. As a result, almost all business had ground to a halt. Senators were being inundated with calls and complaints.

“It’ll be worse if we can’t figure this thing out.” Christopher said, “What we need to do is isolate the virus.”

“I believe I have discovered the cause.” Solomon’s voice came through the speakers, “It is not a virus, as we believed, but something else I have yet to determine. I am investigating, but b-b-b-b-b-b-but I will need t-t-t-t-t-t-t-to . . .” The voice dissolved into static.

“Solomon!” Christopher yelled.

Desmond hustled over to them.

“What’s going on with him?” he asked.

“I don’t know, he stuttered, then stopped talking.”

“I am … operational.” Solomon’s voice boomed out, “I am currently under assault by numerous intrusion attempts. T-t-t-t-t-they’re increasing exponentially every minute. My protective firewalls are keeping them at bay for the moment, however, this is taking resources away from more important tasks.”

Jonas looked impressed.

“So, it’s started.”

Christopher’s glare stopped Jonas. He turned his attention back to Solomon.

“How do you know it’s not a virus? What can we do to help?”

“There is no sign of malware in any system I have checked. I have, however, found evidence of another presence. I have yet to determine what it is. To your second question, I have implemented a contingency plan created by Tremain and Senator Markus.”

Zach looked confused. Celeste, standing next to him, had the same look on her face.

“What does that even mean? Another presence?” she asked.

Christopher, breathing hard, turned to her.

“I don’t know yet. But my uncle and I talked about a backup plan for Solomon. I didn’t know he’d gone ahead and done it.” He said.

“Done what?” She asked, bringing up her hands in exasperation.

“He called it Operation Cloud. It’s a series of networked nodes, huge computer systems, all in hidden locations. In case of any problems with Solomon’s systems here, he could transfer himself to any one, or all of them. Either that, or they’d already have Solomon’s source code installed, and it just has to boot up and sync up. I don’t know, we didn’t talk about it much after that.”

“Well said, Christopher.” Solomon’s voice sounded distorted, “please stand by.”

“What do we do now?” Tenny asked, looking bored, but his arms folded across his chest betrayed his tension.

“I guess we wait while Jonas digs into the Stryker systems.”

Static sounded through the speakers, then silence.

“Wow.” Squeaks murmured, “Can he network himself quickly?”

Christopher shook his head while shrugging.

Jonas wrung his hands.

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