Virus Hunters 2: A Medical Thriller by Bobby Akart

Author:Bobby Akart [Akart, Bobby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown Publishers Inc.
Published: 2020-06-07T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Darpa

Arlington, Virginia

Harper, Joe and Kwon continued their conversation for another hour as she explained to her new partner what she hoped to accomplish in China. They then left for a medical laboratory, where they were injected with microchips developed by DARPA. They would be tracked by the technology teams located within this facility as well as by the CIA stationed at the American embassy in Beijing.

Over the course of the afternoon, Kwon loosened up somewhat. He was still not open to playful banter and jokes. Harper surmised he never would be. She was interested in breaking through his tough shell to determine if he’d always been this way or if something had occurred in his life that caused him to become so closed off. In the end, it didn’t matter to her because he would serve a twofold purpose—bodyguard and well-trained physician.

“Follow me, please,” said Kwon as he led them through a door marked Secured Access. Using an eye retina scanner, he unlocked the door, and then once inside, he explained to a guard the purpose of his guests accompanying him. He turned to Harper.

“One of the challenges we’ll face throughout China is their extensive, sophisticated facial-recognition technology. Because you’ll be assuming the identity of Dr. Blasingame, our AI team has created a few methods to confuse their surveillance. This way.”

Joe looked at Harper and smiled. He leaned in to whisper, “Whadya think about Kwon?”

“Very impressive, but his personality is a far cry from Becker’s.”

“You need this kind of balance in your life.”

“I still think he’s a robot,” said Harper.

Kwon led them into a room full of glass-enclosed cubicles, each of which was occupied by DARPA personnel wearing white lab coats.

“I’m told by the CIA liaison that they’ll be manipulating the commonly used Chinese apps like AliPay and WeChat, together with what we call the blue-green app. We’ll talk more about that once we arrive at the embassy.”

He turned into one of the cubicles, where the technician turned to address him. “Hello, Dr. Li. You’re all set.” He handed Kwon a ziplock-style plastic bag. He opened it and pulled out several surgical masks. Two were dark blue and two were light blue. He handed one of each to Harper before turning to the technician.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

The technician made several entries on a keyboard, and then the screen changed to reflect the view from a camera that was attached to an extra-long USB cable stretched under his desk. He picked up the camera and pointed at Harper’s face.

The software immediately recognized her. A split screen appeared with her face appearing on one side and her biographical details—such as age, height, weight, address, and job—appearing on the other half.

“These are the types of things facial-recognition software feeds into any airport security system, for example,” began the technician. “Now, Dr. Randolph, please put on the light blue face mask.”

Harper obliged and turned toward the camera. The screen immediately changed, and the face of Dr. Blasingame and her biographical data appeared. Harper’s eyes grew wide.

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