Gone in a matter of
weeks.
A quick search through
YouTube showed nothing new since he’d fallen asleep three hours
ago, but a beeping sound drew his attention to the fourth monitor
with a snap.
“You’ve got
to be kidding me.” He shook his head, then ran his palm up and
down over his face, making sure he was really awake and not dreaming
this.
Then he started
laughing.
He was in. Screw those
guys who’d said it was impossible to hack the CDC. He couldn’t
believe it. He was really in. And he honestly had no idea how he’d
done it. The idea for how to create the program just sort of came to
him.
He dragged the CDC
database to the main monitor and started typing. Searching. He needed
to find their main files on the so-called super-flu before someone
realized he was poking around and shut him down. Hell, he’d be
lucky if a SWAT team didn’t come crashing through his door in
the next ten minutes.
His heart raced and he
sat up on the very edge of his chair. His fingers flew over the
keyboard faster than he’d ever dreamed he could type. Damn, the
adrenaline pumping through his veins was better than any drug he’d
ever tried. This was pure energy right here.
He searched their main
files for any possible mention of the virus, but it wasn’t
there. Impossible. They had to have files on this. But where? As far
as he could tell, no one had even named this virus yet. So what
exactly was he looking for?
He paused, fingers
hovering above the keys as he worked through it.
In the news, everyone
was calling this virus the super-flu, but there wasn’t a single
reference to it that he could see. If there was a technical name for
this virus, he hadn’t seen it referenced anywhere.
So what were they
calling it?
He tried reorganizing
the files according to when they were last modified, but nothing on
the virus came up and he didn’t have time to search through all
of these files. There had to be thousands stored here in the main
database.
He looked at the time
counter. He’d already been in for three and a half minutes. If
he was lucky, he had another minute and a half before someone at
security realized he was there and shut him down. For all he knew,
they could be running a tracer program right now. He’d have to
disconnect at five minutes no matter what.
He thought of his
dream. The image of that little girl with the flower in the snow.
His eyes widened as a
new password box popped up on his screen.
He wasn’t even
sure where it had come from. It was like just because he wanted to
find it, it had appeared.
Above the keyboard, his
hands began to tremble. His breath caught in his throat and his mouth
gaped open. As soon as he saw the box, a string of numbers and
letters had appeared in his mind. He had no idea where it came from,
only that it was there, clear as day.
He was almost scared to
type it. Scared it would work.
He could hardly
breathe.
Crash lowered his
fingers to the keyboard. He had to at least try it. He had no idea
when he would ever get a chance like this again. Carefully, he
entered the password in his mind.
Q1X4TnOs5!Ip355xow#M
An impossible
combination. The string was so long, his own hacking program never
would have been able to crack that, even if they had ten straight
years to work on it.
His pinky shook
slightly as he pressed the enter key. He knew there was no way it
could possibly work.
But it did.
Crash opened his eyes
wide as the secret files revealed themselves to him.
“Holy crap!”
He jerked out of his chair, standing up and lifting his fists high
into the air. “No freaking way.”
He had no idea how or
why, but some little voice deep in his brain told him to move quickly
and ask questions later. He sat back down in his chair and got to
work.
He started a program
that would copy the entire folder to his hard-drive, then sat back
and watched as the files copied to his computer. The progress bar
moved fast despite the large size of the drive and he thanked the
solid state hard-drive he’d shelled out big bucks for just a
few weeks ago. That and his twelve gigs of RAM.
He bit his lower lip
and tapped his toes against the cold cement floor. He glanced over at
the timer. 4 minutes 50 seconds. He had less than ten seconds before
he’d have to pull the plug to make sure no one caught him.
Go, go, go.
Five gigs of info left
and only ten seconds. Impossible.
He willed the bar to
move faster and it did. The progress zoomed from seventy percent to a
hundred in the blink of an eye. He shook his head. That was
impossible. Something must have glitched.
The timer beeped and
blinked huge red numbers, showing three, two, one…
Crash hit the kill
switch, his heart racing in his chest.
He’d done it.
He’d hacked one of the most confidential systems in the country
and he’d actually managed to take the data he wanted with him.
But he was sure something had messed up there toward the end.
There was no way the
data had downloaded faster just because he’d told it to.
He opened the new file
on his hard drive and looked through the file names. He couldn’t
believe it. Everything was there. He’d copied the entire
folder.
How was that possible?
How could twenty gigs of information download to his system in less
than thirty seconds? His system was fast, but nothing was that fast.
He stood up, placing
his hands behind his head. He paced in the small space behind his
computer system. He couldn’t even make sense of it in his head.
If he was looking at all the facts, he would say he’d just
dreamed up the code to unlock one of the most highly protected files
in the world.
But that was impossible
right?
A twenty digit password
that just popped into his mind at will? It was ridiculous.
He put his hand on his
forehead to check for a fever. He was definitely flushed, but he
wasn’t sick. There had to be some other explanation. Like maybe
he’d seen that code somewhere else online during his research.
Or maybe it had been some kind of secret code his subconscious mind
had put together.
Yeah, it had to be
something like that.
He wasn’t crazy.
Well, maybe he was a
little bit crazy. He’d been couped up in this stupid basement
for the past two weeks without leaving once. He’d barely slept
and had been staring at computer monitors almost 24/7. That was bound
to make even the most rational person a little bit loopy. And his
sanity had already been questionable at best.
He sat back down in his
ratty green chair and stared at the copied drive.
He sent a quick message
to Atomic, telling him he had the files.
All the answers he’d
been looking for were right there on his computer. Just like that. He
got up and started a pot of fresh coffee, then grabbed another energy
drink out of his mini-fridge. No more sleep tonight.
Tonight he was going to
find out the truth about this virus.
“Wake up.”
The young witch opened
her eyes to darkness. She remembered setting up camp in a large blue
house, but there was no one for miles. She had made sure of that
before she slept.
“Who’s
there?” she asked. Regular humans posed no real threat to her
now that her magic was growing, but she couldn’t afford any
interruptions now. Not when she had such an important task to
complete.
Plus, she knew if
anyone got in her way, she’d have to kill them. She didn’t
like killing.
Annoyance crept over
her as she listened in the darkness. All she wanted to do was get a
good night of rest so that she could press on in the morning. She’d
been traveling on foot for days, following the stone like the Dark
One had taught her to. The closer she got to the guardians, the
warmer the stone felt in her hands and the brighter the marks glowed.
Each of the five marks
referred to one of the guardians. From the way the stone glowed, it
looked like three of them were close to each other already. That
would make her work finding them easier.
“Awake, my
faithful servant. Come and speak with me.”
A dim light flickered
in an adjoining room, and the young witch opened her eyes wider. The
voice had called her a faithful servant, and she only had one master.
A master whose voice she’d only heard in dreams. She swallowed
and stood up from the bed she’d made on the floor with her
cloak.
Following the flicker
of light, she made her way to the next room and gasped at what she
saw.
A tall human female sat
at the kitchen table next to a glowing candle. From the rancid smell,
the witch could tell that the woman was dead. Or rather, undead. The
body had already begun to decompose and there was a wound on her arm
that ran with yellow puss.
“Who are you?”
the witch asked. She’d seen these undead servants roaming
around ever since she’d killed the man. She had never heard one
of them talk before, though. Nothing more than meaningless moans or
growls, anyway. But this one had known her for who she was. Had
called her servant.
“Why do you ask
me questions you already know the answer to? Do you dare waste my
time when I have chosen to visit with you?”
A shiver ran up the
young witch’s spine. Without thought, she threw herself onto
the floor, bowing her head toward the undead woman. “I didn’t
realize,” she cried. “How—”
“My power is
growing with each new day,” the rotting woman said. The Dark
One spoke through her. “I can feel it coursing through me with
each new life that is taken. And as I suck the life from the living,
I give it back to the dead, making them rise up as my servants. One
at a time, I’m taking control of this world. But I need the
guardians’ power. I need to infect them with my virus so that I
can steal their power from them like I have the rest of humanity. If
I could have their power, I could finally free myself from this
prison of ice.”
“I am close,”
the witch said. “The stone is glowing brighter every day.”
“You are not
close enough.” The corpse turned its head toward her and she
could see that one of its eyes were missing. A large worm crawled
through it and the witch looked away in fear. “Their powers are
awakening. Can’t you feel it? They won’t understand them,
of course. They have no memories of who they used to be or the many
lives they have lived. Now they will begin seeking each other out.
They will feel drawn to each other in ways they do not understand,”
the Dark One said. “You must find them before they complete
their group. Three are already together. Soon, they will join up with
the fourth. You must find them before they become five. Do this for
me and I will reward you.”
“But how can I
find them?” she asked. “I’m already doing all I can
by following the stone.”
“You are a
tracker,” the Dark One said. “Has no one taught you of
your own abilities in all your sixty years?”
The witch opened her
mouth. A tracker?
“How do you think
it was that you knew exactly where Tobias Prague had gone that day in
the woods? You knew by instinct, didn’t you?”
The witch nodded. She
had known which way he went without knowing how or why.
“This is a part
of the power you were born with,” the Dark One told her. “In
your dreams, you will begin to see the guardians more clearly. As you
see them, you will begin to be able to track them. You will begin to
see them. To know them. You will even be able to see into their
minds. Their dreams.”
The witch shook her
head. She didn’t have that kind of ability. She wasn’t
strong enough.
“Do not doubt
yourself,” the Dark One said. “It is only by believing in
yourself and trusting your natural instincts that you will begin to
fully embrace your destiny.”
The witch burned with
the desire to please the Dark One. She yearned to live up to what
this great necromancer believed she was capable of. She would do
anything—sacrifice anything—to please her.
“I will not fail
you.”
The candle on the table
blew out and the corpse’s eyes dimmed, glazing over with the
milky blue of the mindless.
With great speed, the
young witch dressed, packed her things, and headed back out on the
road in search of the guardians.
Sunlight streamed in
through the window and Parrish’s eyes fluttered open
reluctantly. Disoriented, she looked around the room, trying to
remember where she was. Then she spotted a picture on the wall of the
guest room. Noah and his father.
They were sitting in a
boat together, holding up small fish and smiling ear-to-ear. Noah
looked to be about ten or eleven in the picture.
She smiled, then
remembered why she was here and not at home, and the smile faded.
How late had it been
when she had finally drifted off to sleep? After midnight for sure,
but it was easy to lose track of time these days. Each day ran in to
the next with no real schedule or purpose. Staying alive seemed to be
the only purpose left.
Parrish slipped out of
bed and walked over to the window. She peeked through the blinds,
scared of what she might see out there. How many more infected found
them in the night?
But there was no one in
sight. The street was empty and the front yard looked almost normal
except for some trash that had blown into the yard from a toppled
trash can next door.
Someone knocked on the
door and Parrish turned just as Noah opened a small crack in the
door. His eyes traveled from the bed to the window, then he smiled.
He looked tired.
“Hey,” he
said softly. “I wasn’t sure if you were up yet. I made
some coffee downstairs and thought maybe it would be a good time for
us to sit and talk if you’re up for it.”