With These Eyes (18 page)

"We're in wireless range, Commander,"
reported the Trooper to Tasha's left.

A smaller screen showed a list of cordless
and cellular devices aboard Lars’ vessel. Progress bars indicated
Tasha's system was connecting to every cell phone, music player and
computer on the ship. Audio and video feeds from various digital
devices on board the
Galaska
populated the schematic of the
ship at their respective locations. Video from web cams and cell
phones made the entire ship transparent for Tasha. She had once
again caught up with her prey.

Isabelle's face was red from scrubbing. The
Geiger counter had confirmed the radioactive isotopes were gone
from her face and hands. Her heavily taxed skin welcomed the warmth
from the insulated facemask Isabelle was wearing. One of the female
scientists on board knew Isabelle's mother from her books and
stories about Gemma’s work on the icebreaker in the past. She was
about the same built as Isabelle and only too happy to lend her
some clothes. Isabelle walked up the stairs to the deck, the
freezing wind blew past her. A blue Arctic explorer parka covered
much of her body. She felt warm, it seemed mostly from the
hand-knitted sweater, yet the layers of thermal clothing beyond the
pullover kept in much of Isabelle's heat. Atop layers of thermal
underwear and a pair of jeans, yellow snow-pants kept Isabelle's
legs warm. She wore the insulated hood of the jacket over her head.
Isabelle spotted Lars standing by the port railing and walked over
to him. He saw her out of the corner of his eye. Startled, the
skipper swung his head around. "You're dressed just like your
mother." A joyful smile spread across Lars' frost-covered face.
Isabelle's hand clutched Gemma's beads in one of the pockets she
used to keep her hands warm. Lars' words filled her heart with
warmth. She was her mother's daughter, on a quest for the truth.
"She would spend countless nights on deck, right where you are
standing."

Gemma had never talked to Isabelle much about
her work in the Arctic. Isabelle knew the years they spent in the
jungle, her mother worked on finding natural cures for some of the
world's most devastating diseases. Gemma didn't know the virus had
laid dormant in her body when she gave birth to Isabelle. Isabelle
didn't think much of it, especially since Fuji had Gemma's formula
for the injections. She did, however, wonder sometimes why Fuji was
so secretive about the ingredients. She trusted him with it and had
hopes for the day when she could stop her daily regimen. It was
almost as if she could feel Gemma's presence.

Isabelle looked across the railing. Polar
bears were watching from ice floats as the enormous ship passed by.
A herd of seals had found great entertainment in swimming in the
icebreaker's trail of open water through the frozen sea. With a
look of woe, Isabelle directed her view towards the hovercraft
that was following in a whirl of snow and ice. Lars quickly defused
Isabelle’s concern for her safety while on his ship.

"They can't just board us. It would make them
pirates and no nation in the world would let them land at her
ports. There is a law of the sea."

That was all she needed to hear. Isabelle's
thoughts were on her mother again. The young seeker of truth looked
at Lars, her eyes sparkling from between hood and facemask. "What
did she do out here?"

"Your mother?" Lars knew what was truly dear
to Isabelle. He motioned towards the sky with his head. "She was
always talking about the Northern Lights. After solar flares was
when we'd head out. She said they caused ball lightning. That's
what she was really after."

Isabelle felt a chill, but not from the
weather. "Ball lightning? That topic came up in my research and now
I'm a wanted woman. Why would lightning be such a big deal?"

Lars knew very little about the details of
Gemma's work, but she did tell him a few things over hot spiced
wine when they waited out snowstorms below deck. If there was
another person with whom he could have shared this, it was
Isabelle. "It's not lightning at all." The condensing water vapor
from his breath puffed away in little clouds as he uttered his
words. "Your mother called it a membrane to an anti-matter
universe."

Isabelle was gazing at the endless sky. Lars,
too, was drawn in by the grace that surrounded them. Bands of
Northern Lights in ever-changing colors were dancing elegantly
across the sky. Their light and the orange glow of the sunrise
illuminated the icy desert in an epic display of nature's beauty.
Isabelle pushed her facemask down. Lars had never seen a sunrise
quite as spectacular as this one. It was as if Mother Nature was
matching Isabelle's beauty.

Lars continued. "Your mother and Fuji
discovered this is not the only universe. There are things that
exist just as real as all this in other dimensions. They found that
for every particle in this universe there is a particle of
anti-matter someplace else."

A glimmer from the Northern Lights was
reflected in Isabelle's eyes. She realized what that meant. "The
two could never touch or they would turn back into pure
energy."

Lars nodded. "Ball lightning is a place in
space and time where they do touch and you can find pure
energy."

Isabelle was contemplating the repercussions
such knowledge would have for a world that was driven by the
inequity of the energy trade. Her gaze wandered to the water below.
Much of the ice had cleared away and a few seals had found their
way to swimming alongside the ship. Tasha's hovercraft maintained
its distance in a whirlwind of fog and ice.

Isabelle felt for a moment like she was
walking in her mother's footsteps.

24 RYAN KENSINGTON, DRAGON SLAYER

Back in Los Angeles, Ryan was still looking
for the reason Isabelle's user accounts had vanished. It was
unlikely that he would find the true reason, because Gene's covert
staff had access into the code of the operating system where Ryan
would never suspect.

The walls in his octagonal office were
streaming arrays of data. A single panel displayed video images
from a faraway jungle. One of Isabelle's characteristics he found
attractive was her ability to stay connected with nature, even in a
metropolis like Los Angeles. Ryan had been a techie all his life
and paid little attention to fields and forests. His appreciation
for nature, however, had been growing ever since he met Isabelle
when he began to work for Apophis. The video wall of nature scenes
was his awkward attempt to integrate plants in his life. After all,
he felt comfortable around computers. In his mind, computers were
more predictable. He feared what he perceived as uncontrolled
wilderness.

It had been a busy couple of days for Ryan.
Of all the people his new computer could have failed, it had to be
Isabelle. The integration of Tefis' computer system had kept his
inboxes full. Apophis executives around the globe wanted his
personal assistance with the new system features. Every computer in
the network was now required to authenticate its user via retina
scan. A global flood of peripheral devices had been shipped to all
branches in the weeks prior. Some of Apophis' management had hoped
to be excluded from the procedure but soon chose regaining control
over their files over their objections. Ryan was more bothered by
the devices' blinding scanners than the inherent loss of privacy.
Gene had offered him a position at Apophis after he had developed a
new operating system for home and office. The revolutionary
platform seamlessly integrated all devices that were run by
microprocessor.

Most electronics already had some type of
outside connection to function, such as wireless, internet or the
coax of a cable box. His program was designed to run on any device
and share information with any other appliance on the newly created
network. It would revolutionize how people used their gadgets. The
controls of every washing machine, digital assistant, cable box or
robotic vacuum could be displayed on the screen of another device
running the new program.

Gene had offered Ryan to adopt his new system
for the corporation's global array of electronic consumer products
if Apophis was permitted to make code changes. Gene had argued
Apophis needed to be able to develop their products without being
limited by his restrictions. Ryan agreed. Gene saw a tremendous
potential in such a fluid access to information, especially if that
access was limited to a small group. If Gene would have such a
platform running on all his products, he'd be able to predict
people's actions based on their past routines. He saw no reason to
sacrifice such a powerful tool to user convenience by sharing it
with others.

Ryan remembered the astronomical amount of
money he received in his first check. He had been on a Pacific
island, enjoying the fruits of his labor when Apophis' new-truth
technicians implemented their changes to his universal computing
platform. Gene's software specialists had isolated the subroutine
that made the cross-device access possible and removed it from the
new operating system's code. Gene had ordered an animated Apophis
logo as the start-up screen on every device. His proprietary
graphic had the easy-access routine hidden within its unnecessarily
complex code, where no one would look. When Ryan returned from a
month under the island sun, virtually every product on the market
had been updated to run his software. Qickly, the new software had
been cycled into the never-ending stream of disposable consumer
products.

Ryan had taken occupancy of his custom-built
octagonal office and was surprised by a memo in his e-mail. The
communication acknowledged the implementation of his software and
briefly mentioning that Apophis did not feel the market warranted
universal access. Ryan was told that part of the code had been
written out of the software. The young programmer’s disappointment
had quickly been pushed into the back of his mind when he saw the
overwhelming workload of his new job. It had been Gene's plan to
keep Ryan busy with mundane and repetitive tasks. The goal of
encouraging him to go to the island had been to dispel any
opportunity or desire he might have had to sift through thousands
of pages of computer code and discover the true nature of Gene's
meddling.

Every mine, factory, television and store was
running on the Apophis network with Ryan’s software. He figured
such a feat would surely impress the woman of his desires. What an
embarrassment to have failed her specifically. Ryan had made it a
point to seek the answer to Isabelle's access problem over
answering any more of the helpless messages from the company's
brass. He hadn't seen Isabelle at work since her difficulties
began, but had no idea of the true reason for her absence. Ryan was
determined to solve the puzzle before their next encounter. It was
late afternoon in Los Angeles. Ryan had lost track of time, the
wall panel with the jungle scene was always at high-noon. Outside,
the sun was low on the horizon. For hours, Ryan had been searching
for the reason why. Isabelle wasn't able to access the digital
world. All her user accounts had vanished. Phone, electric, the
Apophis media center, not a single vendor had any record of their
history with her. How was he going to repair her user accounts if
there weren't any? Ryan's idea was to reconstruct what had happened
from the data bits that must have remained after the records were
struck from their respective directories. To do so, he programmed
Isabelle's personal data into a global search-spider to include
servers and hard drives' hidden and deleted sectors.

Data fragments of Isabelle's old library
records were the first find of his complex search. Finally, an act
of success. He programmed the computer to cross-reference any of
the search results' data on Isabelle with all other records. Soon,
his panels filled with reconstructions of Isabelle's utility bills,
driving record and one much more curious item: The search engine
had run the facial biometrics data from Isabelle's driver's license
and produced the police drawing from the Spitsbergen
news-report.

Ryan couldn't believe his eyes. He knew
Isabelle well enough to be certain she was no kidnapper. Behind
such a grave accusation must have laid more than a simple
misunderstanding. The answer was appearing before him. Isabelle's
biometrics had turned up on a classified level of the network. Ryan
was in an exceptional position because his access was system-wide
and unhindered by clearances, a necessity when the company's
leadership called on his support with their computer issues.
Although there were areas of the network that were kept from him,
his search from the systems-administrator level revealed the
existence of Tasha's secret mainframe. Once the directory crawler
had come across Tasha's digital lair, a volcano of spy data on
Isabelle erupted across the walls of Ryan's domain. A satellite
image of the S.S. Galaska on her way towards the Bering strait
caught Ryan's attention. He tapped the image with his index finger
and the ship's schematic from Tasha's surveillance room
appeared.

Wireless Devices in Range

Green lettering at the top of the screen
indicated Tasha was on the hunt. A multitude of icons and video
signals from wireless devices onboard the ship populated an entire
wall. The graphic interface was too familiar for Ryan. It was his
design of the cross-platform operating system. At this point, he
knew what to look for and it didn't take him long to filter through
the files of Tasha's platoon from her secret mainframe to realize
the sort of danger in which Isabelle had found herself. He saw the
ship was bound for Copenhagen. Ryan tapped icons for cell phones on
the ship. After a few tries, the tilted image of Isabelle and Lars
drinking hot chocolate in the galley appeared from one of the
phones. A slightly distorted feed of their conversation sounded
from the speakers of Ryan’s office. He felt like a peeping-Tom. As
happy as he was to have found Isabelle, a feeling of uneasiness
made him pace nervously in circles around his office.