Terminal Connection (26 page)

I
nside his virtual office, Steve glanced at the platinum wall, displaying Allison’s email.

Steve,

In the hospital, I meant to tell you there is more than one Syzygy. They are concurrently online and have been for some time. The last site listed is an alias for Nexus Corporation. I’m sure Ron is involved.

Apostle Robotics 06/13 @ 08:00 PST

Create Your Own Adventure 06/12 @ 15:00 PST

Dog Fight Central 06/10 @ 18:00 PST

Fantasy Central 06/11 @ 15:00 PST

Outdoor Adventures
06/12 @ Unrecorded

Ritz, The 06/09 @ 15:00 PST

s#@~#d$f9e*r8& 06/08 @ 18:00 PST

Love,

Allison

She had been right about Ron. Ron had cleared out all of his files. Steve glanced at the time: 8 p.m. She should have contacted him by now. Allison had checked out of the hospital and was not at the hotel. The sound of an opening portal caused him to turn. Vinnie stepped through.

“I have some bad news,” Vinnie said.

“Don’t tell me. You missed Syzygy again,” Steve said, scanning the sites in the email.

“But that’s only part of it.”

Steve turned.

Vinnie glanced at the floor. He ran a foot along one of the green neon lines.

Steve raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“We attacked Syzygy’s stronghold. They resisted and Allison got separated from the group.”

“What are you saying?”

Vinnie shook his head. “She didn’t make it, Steve.”

His world spun. He reached out and steadied himself against the platinum wall. “If you think this is funny, Vinnie …”

Vinnie walked to him. “I’m sorry.”

Steve shook his head. “No, this is bullshit! You mean she just strolled out of the hospital, joined up with you, and attacked them?”

“Steve, you know how she is. I tried to persuade her not to go, but she insisted.”

Steve took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry. She wasn’t herself today. When we entered the place, she took a wrong turn and got cut off from the rest of the group. They pinned us down. I couldn’t reach her in time. It was quick. They shot her … in the head. There was nothing I could do.”

Steve slumped against the wall, staring at the green neon lines stretching under the block of platinum. The lines of light illuminated his jeans, giving them a green fluorescence.

He placed a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Steve glared at him. “What kind of stupid question is that? Of course, I’m not okay.” He looked down. His hands shook. “Jesus, I need a drink.” Steve moved to press the exit button.

Vinnie grabbed his wrist. “Whoa boy. You can’t hit the sauce just yet. I need your help.”

Steve fixed him with a bewildered stare. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I wouldn’t ask if I had a choice, but I don’t. Syzygy has another strong hold. They’ve attacked Warscape. A lot more people are going to die. I need you to find them.”

Steve ripped his arm free. “What do I care? He already killed everyone who was important to me.” He bit his lip. What had he said? His own words shocked him. Like a boomerang, they went out and came back, sinking into his heart. He felt so alone. An indescribable numbness washed over him, an empty peace. He felt detached, like he had polished off a bottle of scotch.

Vinnie shook him. “Snap out of it. Don’t you care what he did to Brooke, to Allison?”

Like ice water splashed in his face, Vinnie’s words broke the trance. Steve pushed him back. “Goddamn it! Where in the hell do you get off saying that! Look at me? Despite my best effort, I’ve lost my daughter and my girlfriend; the company president and CFO betrayed me.” He shook his head. “I’ve hung in there. God knows I have! But everything I’ve touched has turned to shit. Of course, I care; but at some point you’ve got to step back and say things are just out of control. I’m doing more harm than good. You’d be better off without me.”

Vinnie grabbed his arm again. “Listen to me. You can feel sorry for yourself as much as you want later, but right now I need you here. Whether you like it or not, this problem started with you and it looks like it’s going to end with you too.”

Steve closed his eyes. The shell had returned around his heart.

“Please, Steve. If not for me, do it for Allison, for Brooke, for everyone else they’ve killed.”

Allison
. She had chided him about his intensity. Even now, he focused on her death and spiraled down. He couldn’t do this. It had already cost too much.
Think about Syzygy
. Looking down at his shaking hands, he clenched them into fists.
Don’t collapse; not this time
.

“Steve?”

“Give me a second!”

Vinnie released his arm and stepped back.

Steve rubbed his temples. Syzygy could not win. Their lives had meant more than that. He closed his eyes and saw Brooke once again comatose, on his desk. The numbness dissipated a bit. He replayed in his mind the sound of the coroner zipping up the body bag holding Brooke. A jolt of pain shot through him. He played the sound over and over again, gaining resolve.

“Goddamn it!” he shouted. Clenching his teeth, he imagined Allison getting shot. In his mind’s eye, Syzygy stood over her, looking impassively down at her crumpled body. Syzygy then raised his head and fixed him with an emotionless stare, filling him with a burning rage. It intensified his resolve. Steve opened his eyes for real. Vinnie’s gaze replaced Syzygy’s.

“Are they terrorists?”

Vinnie shook his head. “Not quite. Psychotics don’t work in organized packs.”

“So what are they?”

“I was hoping you could tell me that.”

“Damn it! How should I know? Don’t you have anything?” He shook his head. They still knew next to nothing about Syzygy. His world closed in. Thin threads of guilt started to wrap themselves around his heart. He shook free.
Start with what you know,
he told himself. He glanced at Allison’s email. She had been right about Ron.

“My CFO was involved, but I don’t know how. Ron wiped out his files on the company server.” He remembered the trashed lobby and beach site. “I think he let Syzygy into the VR server. Ron knew the word syzygy. It means something like
mating microbes
. A program could be thought of as a microbe. Perhaps they left more than just the beach site. They needed at least one other program to keep the link open on the server.” He stared off into the endless blackness.

“But a lot still doesn’t make sense. Syzygy understands the Nexus better than I do. Somehow he listened in on my Nexus’ direct link without being physically plugged in.”

Vinnie nodded. “Like a spy, he attacked from the inside out.”

It clicked. What was the lowest, simplest form of life? “Oh god, that’s it! Syzygy wasn’t connected to the Nexus; he was
in
the Nexus.”

“What?”

“Don’t you get it? He was inside it! Syzygy was not replacing the V-chip software with the portal program. He was becoming the portal program itself!”

“I don’t follow.”

“A virus. Syzygy is a goddamn computer virus, a very complex one with an interface like Jan or Charlie.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes! The day the hackers trashed the Nexus lobby I told Ron, an undetected virus is like a spy in an organization; once accepted as one of the fold, you cannot find them without making everyone a suspect. Don’t you see? A virus would act the same everywhere. Each Syzygy would be exactly the same down to the byte, a perfect clone of the original. Everywhere the virus attacked, it would have the same MO, but being a program it could be at many places at once. It would appear to have an intimate knowledge of the Nexus and act psychotic, without emotion.”

“Okay. I believe you. Can you destroy it?”

“I’ll have to find it first.”

Vinnie glanced up, reading a page. “The Warscape situation has gotten worse. I can’t stay. Let me know when you find the program.”

Steve nodded.

Vinnie opened a portal but paused before stepping through. He fixed Steve with a serious look. “I can count on you, can’t I? You will stay and finish this?”

A new wave of anger washed over Steve. He met Vinnie’s gaze and held it momentarily before responding. “I told you. Everyone I cared about is gone. Hatred is about all I have left. I’ll find the program that killed them.”

Vinnie smiled. “Good man.”

“And I’ll kill the bastards who used it.”

Vinnie lost his smile as he stepped through the portal.

E
d Davis looked across the table. The Admiral was still online. He jumped over the table and ripped the Nexus off the Admiral’s head.

The Admiral screamed.

“You’re fine!” Ed yelled. “I pulled your Nexus off. It will take a moment for your senses to recover.”

The Admiral stood up quickly, knocking Ed in the jaw. He stumbled backward as the Admiral lost his balance and landed hard on the ground.

“Shit!” Ed rubbed his jaw. “Can you hear me?”

The Admiral squinted. “Barely.” He cleared his throat. “Was that Syzygy?”

Ed nodded. “He’s taken down Warscape.”

“Bring Houston up!” He stood abruptly and placed a hand on the wall, steadying himself.

Ed shook his head. “The two Warscape systems are linked. If Syzygy gets one, they’ll get the other when we bring it online.”

The Admiral became quiet. Finally, he punched the intercom. “Warscape is down. Warscape is down. Reconvene in the Command Control compartment. Scramble the birds; a Chinese attack is imminent. I repeat. An attack by the PLA is imminent.” He turned to Ed. “We’ve got two birds in the air: Navy’s E-2 Hawkeyes. They’re not Warscape, but their radars should provide us a limited picture of the battlefield. We might be able to hold out for an hour with them. The problem is our
real
eyes and ears won’t be here for at least three more hours.”

“What?”

“Blame your President. With redundant Warscape systems, he claimed we needed nothing else. He shut down our base in Singapore. That leaves Okinawa, Japan, and Guam as our closest airbases.”

“I guess you were right about Warscape,” Ed joked, trying to make light of the situation.

The Admiral did not smile. “I hope you’ve made peace with your Maker, Mr. Davis. We won’t be getting out of this alive.”

Michael Dawson attempted to sort the deluge of information coming at him. Six more F-18X Hornets had joined him in the air, adding to the chaos. Michael had to keep track of the ever-changing targets, interpret data from the mission computer, and listen to the hysterics on the radio, all while flying his modified F18X Hornet fighter, one of the most complex war birds ever built. Around him his entire cockpit was lit up and screaming at him from half a dozen consoles. Bogies were everywhere.

By far, the radio was the worst. An incessant chatter broken up by adrenaline-charged screams assaulted his mind. Then he heard it amid the chatter—his call sign.

“Sierra one-two-niner, bandits eleven o’clock, fifty,” the radio yelled out.

“Where, where? Say again,” Michael yelled back.

“Sierra one-two-niner, bandits are off Roberto, fifty, flying at angels three zero, over.”

“This is Sierra one-two-niner flight copy in pursuit,” Michael said as he slammed the stick over, swinging the plane around. He tickled the radar, letting it make one sweep, and his radarscope blossomed, lit up in red. There must have been over twenty targets traveling very, very fast.

“Kitchen!” Michael screamed. The missiles were fifty-four miles out from the carrier. Michael turned to his weapons console. He flipped the master armament switch on. He watched the console light up in red, showing six missiles selected, armed, and ready. Each squeeze of the trigger would launch one. His gaze moved back to the radar console. The screen was still filled with red blips. “Flight copy, which one? Which one is the bandit? Over?”

“Sierra one-two-niner, four bandits eleven o’clock, thirty-five.” Michael spotted them, four contacts close together. “Control, contacts eighteen miles off my nose.”

“Those are your bandits,” the Hawkeye chimed in, handing over mission control to Michael.

“Prepare outer parameter defenses, bandit forty miles from bull’s eye,” the radio squawked. They were attacking the carrier.

He glanced down at the weapons console. A green light confirmed the computer had an acceptable launch scenario. Michael turned his plane, raised its nose five degrees, and pulled the trigger four times in quick succession. The portals opened and AAMRAAM missiles leaped off the rails and sped after their targets. Seconds later he saw a flash, then another, and another, as his missiles impacted with the enemy targets.

But there was no fourth explosion. One of the missiles had missed. Michael toggled the radar switch. The scope confirmed that an enemy missile remained.

“Damn!” He had two missiles left. Michael pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He glanced down at his console. Yellow light. The portal door to the missile had failed to open. He fired again, launching his last missile. It shot straight ahead. He aimed the nose of his plane toward the enemy’s missile until AMRAAM’s radar system locked onto it. His missile acquired and turned toward its quarry. He glanced at the scope, watching one green blip follow a red one. The two were very close together and closing fast on the carrier. Being only ten miles away from the target and covering a mile every three seconds, Michael knew everything would be decided in less than half a minute. Then something happened.

The enemy missile angled up and before Michael knew what was happening, it struck one of the Navy’s E-2 Hawkeyes, their only eyes and ears in the sky. Far to aft, there was another explosion. Michael glanced at his scope. The other Hawkeye disappeared. Warscape and both Hawkeyes were down. They were blind with no way to coordinate a defense.

Michael flipped his radar to long range. The radar made a sweep and once more the scope lit up in red. From one hundred miles out, twenty Chinese Ming, Romeo, and Oscar-class submarines came to the surface. They launched their first volley of SS-N-19C missiles at the battle group.

The missiles quickly homed in on their target, traveling at over two thousand feet a second, skimming along just ten feet above the ocean.
U.S.S. Elliot
and the other three destroyers activated their AEGIS systems, which spouted a return volley of missiles at the Chinese attack. A dozen Chinese missiles made it through the screen.

The carrier activated its electronic jamming, throwing up chaff—small strips of meta—and fired flares in the air. All of these were designed to lure the missiles away from the carrier, but the missiles did not deviate from their paths. They still kept coming.

Aboard
U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln,
sirens wailed as the Phalanx guns erupted in fire, making a last-ditched attempt to shoot down the oncoming missiles.

“What’s happening?” Ed asked, glancing at the watch that Shen, the Chinese diplomat, had given him. It had stopped again. At least the price was right.

“Missiles,” the Admiral muttered. “The mine must have sent out our location before it struck the ship. Our flares and chaff aren’t working because they know exactly where we are.” The Admiral got quiet.

“What is it?” Ed asked.

“That’s not right! We’re still moving at a few knots. There’s no way those missiles could hit us without radar or heat to home in, but sure as hell they’re coming in just like clockwork!”

Ed looked in horror at his watch. “Oh, god!” He tore it off, and using a key, popped its back off.

The Admiral laughed as Ed pulled out a thin circular metal disk. It was a GPS locator and transmitter. The Admiral took the disk from Ed and slammed it on the ground, smashing it under his boot. A tremendous explosion ripped through the ship, throwing Ed against the hull as the carrier lurched.

“I swear! I didn’t know!” Ed screamed. He turned. The Admiral lay unconscious, a large gash above his left eye. Ed ran out of the room. The hall was jammed with people. Sirens bellowed as red lights flashed overhead. The crowd swept Ed along, up on deck.

In the tower, he could see thick black smoke rising up from the flight deck. Several F18s were on fire. Men in blue wielded long hoses, dousing the fire with foam from a distance, unable to get close to the intense flames. One of the F18’s gas tanks split open, spilling fuel across the flight deck. A few men dropped their hoses and ran.

In a flash, the fuel ignited. The concussion threw Ed to the deck. When he got up, the men on the flight deck were gone. Only some of the hoses remained, spewing high-pressure foam randomly across the deck.

Ed could see holes punched into the steel deck, fuel spilling through into the lower decks. Deep shuttering booms sounded below. Behind him, the Phalanx guns erupted once more. He turned just in time to put his hands up in front of his face. Ed disappeared in a wall of fire as the flames washed over the deck like a wave.

Metal twisted and contorted as the tower snapped in half and fell onto the flight deck. Deep in the bowls of the hull, one of the ammunition stores caught fire and exploded.

U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln
sank within minutes.