The Survival Code, page 10
Terminus: No and if I did I wouldn’t keep them to myself.
There’s something off about this.
Me: What are you talking about?
Terminus: You haven’t been watching the news, have you?
Me: No.
Terminus: First Federal made an announcement an hour ago. They started trying to do a data recovery last night.
Of course they did. You’d expect that. Their data centers were destroyed. They’d make an attempt to get a provisional system set up and start a recovery from their backup. Why is Terminus spooked by standard operating procedure?
Terminus: There’s no backup.
In spite of the fact that Terminus isn’t with us, I find myself shaking my head.
Me: That isn’t possible.
Terminus: They discovered a piece of latent malware resident in their system. It’s placed all the bank data behind some kind of encryption nobody understands and corrupted five years of backup.
Me: They think my dad had something to do with it?
Terminus: Publicly no, but in the dark web...
Terminus: They’re looking for him.
Terminus: I mean honestly who else could it be?
Who else could it be?
If I’d had anything to eat this morning, I’d be throwing it up.
Who was in charge of redesigning First Federal’s data architecture systems five years ago? Who worked on encryption schemes the way some people did crossword puzzles?
Dad.
“Dad keeps licorice in his drawer,” Charles tells MacKenna.
Dad hadn’t been on campus in a long time.
Finally, a map renders on the screen. I let out a long exhale. The last reading from the phone was from more than six hours ago. I zoom in on the map until I get close to the blinking dot of Toby’s possible location.
“Toby’s across campus in the Student Union. Or at least he was. Six hours ago.” I stare at the map as messages from Terminus continue to pop up.
Terminus: Jinx?
Terminus: Jinx?
Terminus: You have to listen to me. I did some research about this guy Tork. He’s a real whackjob. I mean Revelations, real end of the world type stuff. With him it’s not business. It’s not personal. He’s some kind of vigilante.
Terminus: He’s dangerous.
Terminus: And he’s good.
MacKenna’s shoulders slump. “What does that mean?”
It takes me a second to mean that she’s talking about Toby and not the cryptic message from Terminus. “Ah. It means his phone is probably off. So all we’ve got is the reading from the last time his phone pinged a tower.”
She thinks for a second. “Okay, but that’s a starting point?” There’s hope in her voice. “We can go over there. Maybe ask if anyone’s seen him.”
I sigh. “We can’t leisurely stroll around interviewing people, MacKenna.”
Charles freezes with a piece of candy rope hanging from his mouth.
“You’re not supposed to be eating that!” I snap at my brother.
“I’m hungry.”
God only knows how long that candy has been there. On top of everything else, I’ve failed to watch my brother. Or make sure he’s had anything decent to eat. I keep typing.
Me: What are you saying?
Terminus: Maybe running isn’t the best option.
“We can check his room,” MacKenna goes on.
I shake my head. “It would take too long. The dorms are huge and you probably need an access code or a key to get in. Going there isn’t smart.”
We can’t turn ourselves in.
We’re supposed to find Dad. And stay together. And stay safe.
A bunch of directives that contradict each other.
MacKenna stands. “Well, I’m going.”
We’ve probably used four of our five minutes.
“Wait. Wait.” I close the chat window with Terminus and make a few clicks in the server window. “They have IPTV all over campus.” Dad used to have a program that let him tap into the feed. He made it so that he could check which vending machines had cheese balls. If it still works, we can see into the Student Union without having to go there.
“What?” She scowls.
“They have a network of web-enabled security cameras.”
Dad’s program does work. It bypasses the university’s security protocols and images from around campus rotate across the screen. A couple of people walking into the library. Scenes from the book stacks. I make a few more clicks until I locate the Student Union.
I rotate Jay’s laptop so she can see it too.
My breath catches at the sight of Toby sitting with his fingers spread wide on a table in an otherwise empty white security office.
The images continue to change. The whole second floor is totally empty.
Which makes sense.
Because.
On the first floor, there’s a riot.
And there’s a knock at the door.
DR. DOOMSDAY SAYS:
CERTAIN SITUATIONS DON’T CALL FOR BRAINS. OR BRAWN.
THEY TAKE NERVE. SURVIVAL IS AN ACT OF WILL.
I slam the laptop shut and shove it into the yellow bag.
Once I move from behind the desk, I open the door a crack and find one of the security officers from downstairs. “There have been some disturbances on campus. We’re checking in to make sure everything is all right.”
I give him what I hope is a nice, nonsuspicious smile and snatch a couple of old, dusty computer science books from the shelf. “Dr. Marshall asked me to come by and pick up some stuff for a project he’s working on.”
He nods twice. Slowly. “Dr. Marshall, huh?”
He knows.
Through the sliver in the open door, I see his hand travel to the radio at his belt.
I reach inside my jacket, circling my fingers around the grip of my Taser. I catch MacKenna’s gaze and jerk my head in the direction of the corner farthest from the door. She gives me a small shake of her head. But she seems to get my plan and moves Charles into the corner behind the desk.
Okay. Okay.
Deep breath.
I slam the door open. Hard. Sending the radio flying through the air.
The guard covers his face with one of his hands and blood drips through his fingers.
With the door now open, in one swift motion, exactly the way we always practiced, I pull my Taser out of my inner jacket pocket, slide the safety into the armed position and press the trigger. Two blue wires and a few pieces of pink and yellow confetti shoot out from the gun. The silver probes hit the guard in the neck, just a hair above the collar of his uniform shirt.
I’ll hand it to the guy. He’s tough.
He does fall to the ground, but grunting and gasping, he manages to bring his hands within a couple inches of pulling out the probes.
I have to shock the guy through three cycles. A full thirty seconds.
That’s what it takes to keep him down, clutching his chest and taking shallow breaths.
There’s no telling how long he’ll stay there.
So I move fast.
MacKenna is staring at me. “Was that really necessary?”
“Get over here and help me move this guy. We have to get him into the office. It’s like he’s made of poured concrete.” I plant one of my feet against the hallway wall and try to leverage my body weight to make it easier to move the guard.
“He doesn’t...he doesn’t look that heavy,” she stammers. I can tell she’s scared.
“Well, he is,” I shoot back.
Working together, it’s all we can do to get the guard through the door and onto his stomach on the grimy floor mat just inside Dad’s office.
Charles remains huddled in the corner.
I kneel, and the corrugated rubber mat digs into my knees. The lower I go to the ground, the more it smells like feet. And transmission fluid. And like someone has thrown up over and over, and another someone did a crappy mopping job with watered-down lemon cleanser.
I check the guard’s utility belt until I find the plastic ties that campus security uses as handcuffs. The guy’s got huge biceps and thick legs that jut out like twin tree trunks. He groans as I pull back his arms to bind his hands with the plastic tie. This can’t be a comfortable position for a man with those kinds of muscles. When I’m done I also take the ring of keys hanging from his belt.
“Get the radio,” I tell MacKenna.
I rip out the cord that extends from the phone on Dad’s desk into the wall and stow it in my bag. When MacKenna returns with the radio, I place it on the tile floor in the office and stomp it with my foot. Bits of plastic scatter everywhere. I kick them so they’re inside the small office.
“Come on.” I motion to my brother. He’s watching the blood run onto the mat.
“It’s fine... I swear. It’s fine.” I’m panting. I hope my brother can’t hear the drumbeat of my heart as it betrays me. He nods and runs through the door carrying the yellow bag.
When he’s out, I shut the door, lock it and jam a random key in the hole, twisting it until it’s firmly stuck in the knob. The guard is tied up and has no phone or radio. Plus, it’ll take them a while to get him out.
Still. There isn’t much time.
The instant I shut the door, MacKenna turns on me. “Have you totally lost it? I don’t like the cops either, but seriously...whatever is going on...you just made things a whole lot worse. We need to think about this...consider our options...”
Mom said our only hope is to find my dad. “If you want to see Toby, we have to go now.”
“I’m scared, Jinx,” Charles says.
Me too. This is what I want to say.
Instead, I take his hand and squeeze. “We’ll be okay.”
We make it out of the CC without attracting further notice. I’m not that familiar with ASU, which means we have to follow the signs to the Student Union and stick to the main walkways. MacKenna has one of Charles’s hands and I have the other, and we take the campus at a jog. We pass groups of students carrying bright blue Everyone’s for Rosenthal signs. Groups of older men in red shirts with The Opposition slogan on them crisscross the campus.
Make today as good as yesterday.
By the time we arrive at the huge building that houses an assortment of restaurants, a bowling alley and a bunch of offices, MacKenna is the only one of us who isn’t completely out of breath. She’s on Jay’s fancy treadmill every morning at six thirty. I quit jogging the day Mom filed for divorce from my dad.
The mess from inside the building has spilled onto the lawn. Clusters of kids in blue shirts wave signs. Someone is playing the drums. A woman with a torch paces in front of a man with a white beard standing on a box and shouting.
We blend into the crowd.
The man yells out, “When I was a boy, this country was a place where a man earned his keep, kept his earnings and was asked to give only his guidance to others...”
A few guys run out of the SU with armfuls of bags of potato chips and cases of soda.
The fire alarm begins to wail.
MacKenna can’t help herself. She taps a girl with brown braids on the shoulder. “What the hell is going on?”
The girl shrugs. “Annika Carver was supposed to speak here a little while ago. We came to protest. I mean, first, The Opposition basically rigs the election—”
“The Spark emerged from the decay of old political parties, a ghost from the ashes, a specter imposed upon us by those who want to take—”
The woman waves the torch, sending a blast of lemongrass and citronella in our direction.
I put my hand on MacKenna’s arm. We don’t have time for this.
From somewhere behind us, a woman’s voice calls, “We didn’t rig the election. The Opposition campaign was just smarter.”
“They levied taxes, created programs hostile to the common man—”
Braid girl smacks her gum. “You got some computer weirdo to show you how to stop people from voting. I read about this place in Wisconsin where just by messing with the traffic lights on the streets where people from The Spark lived, they stopped enough people from voting to swing the district.”
“That’s not illegal!”
“It should be!”
MacKenna pokes the girl again. “You’re saying the president’s daughter is in there?”
The girl shakes her head. “No. The bobble-headed bleach blonde didn’t bother to show up. Typical.”
“Yet it’s not too late. Not too late to make today as great as yesterday—”
“Go to hell!” a boy in the crowd shouts.
“As of Monday night, The Spark is a terrorist group,” a man behind MacKenna says. “They’re responsible for the attacks on the banks. Rosenthal won’t be satisfied until he destroys everything.”
A chair is thrown from one of the windows.
This time I grab MacKenna. “We have to go.”
I keep Charles as close to me as I can while we run up the handful of stairs into the SU. At the doorway, I can see all the way down McCallister. Off in the distance, the National Police have arrived and are setting up barricades. From up the block, I catch a glimpse of an angular form in a black suit.
It’s Tork.
Tork is coming.
We rush in against a steady flow of people. My brother is almost knocked in the head by a girl running out with a box of paper cups. Inside, students swarm the restaurants. A kid stands on a sofa trying to pry a TV off the wall. In the bowling alley, people are throwing heavy neon balls in every direction, creating a steady series of thumps and thuds. I spot a few security guards, but they’re completely overwhelmed by the chaos. A pizza oven smokes and sends the smell of burned pepperoni all through the first floor.
That explains the fire alarm.
Charles releases my hand to cover his ears. I grab the collar of his jacket.
Ahead of us, there’s a loud crack. Shouting.
It’s looting.
And gunfire.
“Jinx,” he says.
“It’s okay. We’re okay.”
My brother’s mouth keeps moving. Mumbling. He’s doing the rosebush thing again.
We are so screwed.
Somehow, in all the mess, MacKenna manages to find the emergency stairwell.
We hustle in and I close the door. We’re alone. At least I can hear myself think.
Maybe it’s my imagination, but the lights seem to be dimming.
MacKenna lets her breath out in a huff.
“You think we’ll find Toby up here, Jinx?” Charles asks.
“I hope so.” Finding him would be a relief. At least, we’d all be together again.
My Cons squeak and slide on the superclean white tile floor. The upstairs space is organized in groups of offices. We pass doorways labeled Alumni Association, Facilities Management and Student Activities before coming to one that reads Security.
There doesn’t seem to be any point in being subtle about it.
We can’t change what’s on the other side of the door.
We’ll either get Toby. Or we’ll get caught.
I push the door open fast.
It feels a bit melodramatic when the room on the other side is empty.
We’re in what basically looks like a reception area with a tall desk on one side and several waiting chairs on the other. Framed posters that say things like “See Something Say Something” and “Keep Calm and Call Security” cover the walls.
I check behind the desk and find a pink phone message pad, a stack of yellow lined notebooks and a box of ballpoint pens. The only noise comes from a golden French bulldog nestled on a blanket in one of the corners. It raises its head, snorts a couple of times and flops down again.
Toby must be in one of the offices behind the reception room. I get my lock pick kit out of my jacket pocket, but that winds up being unnecessary. All the doors are unlocked. The first office is empty with an unoccupied, long white table in the center of the room.
Behind the second door, we find Toby, with his hands folded neatly on the table in front of him, staring into space. He blinks a few times as if he might be imagining us.
Relief floods me. At least, whatever happens, we’re all together.
He stands. “MacKenna?” He’s dressed in a pair of baggy gray sweats and a maroon ASU T-shirt, looking the way he always does when he’s hanging around the house studying. He’s got MacKenna’s same pale complexion and dark hair that always seems to be carelessly ruffled.
MacKenna rushes to him and gives her brother a huge hug. Charles runs over there as well. I find myself standing to the side of their little huddle, picking at the edge of my basic sweater.
“Come on, Jinx. Group hug,” Toby says.
I shuffle over awkwardly and end up squeezed in between my brother and Toby with my face smashed into his muscular bicep. The warm hug, and Toby’s always calm demeanor, is exactly what I need to keep my building hysteria from overtaking me.
Conscious of the fact that time is running out, I step back. “We need to get going.”
“Go? Go where? What’s going on?”
MacKenna purses her lips into a grim expression. “It’s not good.”
“We can fill you in later.” I leave the small room, hoping they’ll follow.
They don’t. MacKenna stays put, telling Toby everything that’s happened since we were trapped in Halliwell’s last night.
“We seriously need to go.”
When they ignore me again, I decide to check the last unopened door in the little cluster of security offices. Charles goes with me, and we find ourselves in a place that’s part break room and part monitoring station. There are a couple of small tables with partially eaten sandwiches on them—like someone had their lunch interrupted and had to get going in a hurry. A huge array of flat-screen monitors covers one of the walls, showing camera feeds from all over the SU.
