Interface: A Techno Thriller (26 page)

"How does Marron not know about this door?"

"I've meddled with the CERUS Tower design for years. I hacked their architects' offices and made a few modifications to the plans after CERUS approved them. Mostly for my own amusement. I had no idea it would all actually come in handy."

"Of course we still have to get it open."

Lentz pulled a battery-powered socket driver from her backpack. "I brought my key."

Tom stepped back as she got to work on the first bolt. "I went through all the building schematics on your laptop on the way here. A few areas are blank: on Level 88 it's about ten percent of the entire floor. What do you think that means?"

She glanced across at him. "Just focus on locating Kate. But first, give me a hand with this," she said, as she removed the last bolt.
 

Together they pried open the hatch. Tom peered through. "I can see a service lift. It says Level Minus 5"

Lentz stowed the power tool then held up a phone-sized device and looked at the display. "We can go through the doorway, but stop immediately inside." They clambered carefully through. Lentz reached into her backpack and flipped open her laptop. Then she ran a cable into a socket in the wall.

"Not going wireless?" asked Tom.

"I need considerably more bandwidth. I'm activating my last back door."

"You left something in the system? Surely it's not still there after all these years? Wouldn't it have been overwritten even if it wasn't discovered? The Tower wasn't even built then."

Lentz's hands flew over the keyboard. "They moved the system from building to building. And my backdoor is hidden in millions of lines of code: on its own it looks like benign redundant instructions. And as for being overwritten, you're right: IT systems are normally replaced with next generation code within a few years, but although CERUS made upgrades, at its core it's still the same product." She paused. "Or at least I hope it is. The important thing is that modern protocols and attack techniques simply aren't relevant to this system."

"So it's impenetrable?"

"Unless you have the key." Her fingers rattled across the keys again. Her screen flashed red.

"That doesn't look like a good colour," Tom said.

Lentz sucked in her breath. "Maybe I spoke too soon. I think I only get one more chance before the alarm is triggered."

"Maybe you just typed something wrong?"

Lentz glared at him then typed again, more slowly and deliberately.

ACCESS GRANTED
appeared on her screen.

EIGHTY-ONE

MARRON SAT IN HIS COMMAND centre, sixteen large monitors in front of him cycling through various views, his fingers drumming on the control panel. Of their quarry there was no sign.

"They're not here," said Alex from just behind him. "None of my teams have reported anything. He's either late or he's simply not coming."

"Then why the van?" asked Marron sharply. "No, they're here, but for some reason we haven't spotted them."

"Our guards are pros. How could he have got past them unseen? It's not like they could have flown in."

"No... But what about the other end of the building?"

Alex stared blankly. "Underground? There's no access that isn't covered by security. There would have been an alarm or at least a system error."

"Actually, there is an access route from the river not shown on any plans. It's a special addition I worked into the plans. If they didn't use that, I wouldn't put it past Lentz to have dug her own tunnel."

"That's impossible. She wouldn't have had time. And we'd have detected it being dug."

"Not if it was done during construction."

"Who would plan that far in advance?"

"Lentz."

"But there are cameras on the Minus Levels. Not as many as above ground, but surely something would have shown up."

"Perhaps I've become too reliant on tech." Marron sighed. "Take a team and do a sweep."

◇
◇
◇

The service lift rose smoothly, carrying the two people that Marron most wished to locate.

Tom looked about warily. "Did you switch off the security systems?"

Lentz shook her head. "Marron would have seen that immediately. Instead I looped the last thirty minutes of every system's analysis. So they'll appear to be receiving normal security data, but actually it's historic, not current."

"Just the analysis or the live video-feed too?"

"Both of course." She tapped her tablet. "We'll be on Level 45 in thirty seconds. The room will be ten metres to our right."

"There is one rather obvious problem."

"With the room?"

"No, with your looping the video footage."

◇
◇
◇

In the artificially lit underbelly of the Tower, Alex and her team of six guards had swept Levels Minus 1 through 4. Alex tapped her earpiece and spoke quickly. "One floor to go. Nothing so far."

"Oh crap..." Marron muttered.

Alex pushed open the fire door to the stairwell and began descending. "What's happened?"

"I know why they haven't shown up on the system. It isn't showing current footage."

"How do you know?" She reached the foot of the stairs and stepped into the corridor of Level Minus 5.

"I'm looking at the lobby. There is no van in it."

"Perhaps the guards moved it already?"

"Did they also replace the glass doors?"

Alex pulled a torch from her belt and walked forwards, shining it at a hole in the wall. "It looks like you were right: Lentz had her own tunnel after all."

EIGHTY-TWO

LEVEL 45 WAS A GENERAL administration and services floor, tucked between Level 44 catering and Level 46 Marketing. It was entirely unremarkable at first glance, but Tom and Lentz had identified one office on Level 45 as perfect for their plan. They walked into a small windowless room containing three computer terminals with high bandwidth connections to the building's network. A principal data-trunk for the Tower ran down one wall.

"How long do we have?" Tom asked, quickly unpacking equipment from his backpack.
 

"They may have already noticed the little matter of their wrecked lobby suddenly being fully restored," replied Lentz. "Let's just hope it takes them a while to get the system recalibrated." She ran a cable from her laptop and jacked it into the nearest terminal. The lights flickered and all three computer terminals beeped softly.

"Was that you?" said Tom.

Lentz looked at her screen. "I don't think so. I think it's a status alert."

"Signifying what?"

She tapped her keyboard then swore. "The security system has just been refreshed. It's good in that we can track the guards, but bad in that they can now track us too." She clicked on an icon and a cluster of red dots appeared on a number of small rectangles.

"What are those?"

"Live maps of active ID tags on a floor by floor basis." She pointed at the top left. "This one is Level Minus 5, where we entered. There are seven IDs moving towards the lift."

"We should have replaced the plate so they wouldn't know how we got in."

"It can only be reattached from the tunnel side. Anyway, right now I'm more concerned about them finding
us
."

Tom looked at the featureless door to their room. "There's no lock if they do."

"Just an electronic one, which I've already activated – with a little twist to confuse things. But it won't slow them much." She plugged a cable into a spare power point. There was an angry beep from her computer. "My backdoor might still work, but he's shut down the subnet that I used to gain access last time."

"Maybe I can talk to the computer?" He reached into his own bag and removed the collar and a broad, flat cable, one end of which he clipped to the hub.

"It's a complex system, not a simple mechanical appliance like that robot arm. I don't know what will happen. Perhaps it will feedback on you and render you unconscious." Lentz looked again at the screen. The dots from Level Minus 5 were now in the lift. "We've got three minutes, max."

Tom slipped the collar around his neck. "Then we'd better hope I can come up with something."

◇
◇
◇

Peter Marron watched his displays. A simple reset of the security networks had been enough to clear the looping of legacy data, and now he knew where his enemy was. He wasn't sure exactly how Lentz had managed it, but he was now running multiple scans across all systems. If she tried anything else, he would know immediately. It meant the system wasn't working at peak efficiency, but better that it was under his control.

"We're in the lift, ascending," Alex said over the speakers.

"Yes, I can see," replied Marron. "They're still on Level 45."

"What are they doing there?"

Marron stared at the floor plan, showing two red dots in a simple office room. "I've got no camera coverage. I assume they're trying to access the system. I can't physically disconnect it from here, but I've activated further firewall layers."

"I'm about a minute away."

"They're not going anywhere."

◇
◇
◇

At first, for Tom, there was just the darkness behind his eyelids, the faint hum of the building, the buzz of the network.

And nothing more. Frustration welled within him. He couldn't let his failure in the barn repeat. This had to be different.
 

In the barn he had tried too hard. He forced his breathing to slow, he tried to forget where he was. He counted backwards from a hundred. This had to work, or they were all done for...

And something changed.

It was still dark, but it wasn't
nothing
. It was a space with
dimensions
. He could feel his mind mapped out around him, intimate and familiar. Yet it was not enclosed, it was no longer just
him
. Ahead was another space: somewhere alien and unknown, but rich with information.

This was the interface in action. It was the Tower system ahead of him; he was visualising it with the interface, and he was on the verge of making a connection. All he had to do was reach out. With a rush of excitement, he moved his perspective forward.

And hit a wall.

With a jerk, Tom opened his eyes and stared at the computer display. "Something's not right."

Lentz walked up and placed a hand on his shoulder. "It was always a shot in the dark."

"That's not what I mean. I think I've got it working, but something is stopping me. It's like a wall of glass. I can see the system in front of me, but I can't move to it. I can't make the connection."

"Marron knows where we are. He might be trying to lock the system down." Lentz picked up her laptop. "They're about to reach our floor." She hit a key and the screen switched to a video view. The lift doors slid back and a familiar figure emerged.

Tom pointed at the screen. "That woman. It's always her."

Lentz reached into her bag and pulled out a taser and an automatic pistol.

"There's seven of them," he said. "We can't win."

"If you have a better plan feel free to share it."

Tom closed his eyes, and tried again to feel the system. He pressed against the barrier. It would not move, but as he pushed harder he found he could glimpse through it. He could just make out...

He sat up with a start, his eyes flying open. He pointed to the back wall. "Over there. It's not a proper access panel, but behind it is ducting large enough to accommodate us. There's a ladder system built into the wall."

"Where would we go?"

"Up. I've ID'd a room on Level 60 with a non-standard connection to the building's datanet. We might have better luck there."

"Certainly beats waiting here to be captured."

Tom nodded. "So, Dr Lentz, I don't suppose you would happen to have a power screwdriver in your magic bag, would you?"

Lentz smiled. "I just might."

◇
◇
◇

Alex exited the lift on Level 45 and, with considerable impatience, led her team to the third office on the left. Her guards split ranks to stand either side of the door.

"Remember," she said quietly, "Lentz used to be a professional, so give no quarter, but Faraday must not be harmed."
 

Her team nodded sharply in reply.
 

"Now open it."

One guard pressed the door release. There was a hiss, but nothing else happened. The guard slapped the button again. Still no response.

"The door won't open," said Alex into her earpiece.

"Odd," replied Marron. "Let me override that for you. There you go."

The guard hit the button again, but still nothing happened.

"Nope," said Alex.
 

"Are you sure?" asked Marron. "My readout shows no issue."

"Perhaps your additional firewalls are causing interference. Or perhaps Lentz did more to the system than you realise."

"Actually, I think it's this," said one of the guards, pointing at the base of the door.

Alex looked and laughed.

"What is it?" demanded Marron.

"She stuck a pencil in the door track. Nothing like a low-tech solution to confuse us." With a grunt, she pulled it out and the door slid open.

The room was empty.

EIGHTY-THREE

THE SERVICE PANEL CLATTERED TO the ground and two figures clambered out.

"That was not comfortable for someone of my dimensions," Tom said.

"More comfortable than being captured by Marron, I'm sure," Lentz replied, looking around. "Where are we?"

"Ed Holm's office. He's one of the senior techies working on Tantalus. The connections to this office are higher bandwidth and they circumvent many of the system safeguards."

"Done with Marron's knowledge?"

"Who cares." Tom gazed around at the clutter. "Wow. How does he work in here?" He stepped between piles of paperwork and boxes strewn across the floor.

Lentz froze. "Are there cameras in here?"

Tom pointed up to his right. "There's only one and it covers the doorway. Stay away from it and they'll be none the wiser. Also don't make any unusually loud noises." Tom sat down and plugged his cable into the computer. "Now we just need a little bit of time."