╗ ONE ╚
BREACH
“Perimeter
control to Central, come in please...”
“Go ahead,
perimeter control, you're on vox. The room can hear you.”
“Central, we
think we have a problem.”
A ripple of
professional consternation murmured around the Central Control room
as each man at his post began to check monitors and stats. The
tension dripped off faces, dampened palms, raised vocal pitches.
Above the heads of the troubled crowd, a wide digital timer silently
and ominously marked off the time. The current decimals displayed
05:57:37, and slowly but steadily ticked away the seconds.
“What seems
to be the problem, perimeter control?” The Central Control officer
in charge paced in front of his desk in short bursts, his temper as
jerky as his movements. He nervously rubbed his close-cropped
military-style haircut with his palm and clutched his headset mic
with his other hand. Reddened eyes stared out of his head with a
harried feverishness.
“We think we
have a loop on Cell Block 3-2 camera, Central. We'd like you to check
the video timecode on your end to be sure.”
The harried
Central Control officer abruptly stopped pacing, frowned and leaned
over to tap his console. “Perimeter control, the external digital
filters didn't catch it. It's probably a negative.”
A long silence
from the other end, then the voice again. “Captain James, it's
worth a double check.”
The large
screen at the front of the room showed what it had already shown for
the past ten minutes, and the Central Control officer squinted at it
with growing frustration. “Perimeter control, what evidence do you
have of a loop in the system?” he inquired into his microphone.
“Just because the prisoner hasn't moved in ten minutes doesn't mean
there's been a breach. It's edgy enough over here without another
false alarm. We've been plagued all day by that crap.”
Another
silence from the disembodied voice from Perimeter. Then: “The video
timecode is out of sync. We think we may have had a hardware security
breach.”
The Central
officer startled but still appeared skeptical. He attempted to rub
the fatigue out of his eyes before staring back up at the main
monitor. He hoped his mind was not playing some nasty trick on
him.“Perimeter, the prisoner has not moved from his bed for almost
a quarter hour. Steady breathing pattern, and the bio-sensors in the
room are all registering normal. I say again, the video does not
appear to be looped. Check the damn thing again from your end.”
The man on the
other end of the line grunted, peeved. “Can you check it from your
end, Captain James? Just to be sure? Someone might be trying to
tamper with the feed from the outside.”
Captain James
sighed into his mic. “This system has never been breached before.
And besides, the prisoner will be dead in less than six hours and off
our hands.”
A nearby
controller snorted in agreement. Captain James' eyes flicked over to
his colleague but he could not share in the mirth, no matter how wry.
The entire situation bordered on the ridiculous, mixed with the
tragic: diverting a significant portion of already scarce security
complex personnel in order to watch one man. Captain James
stared closer at the inert digital form of the prisoner on the
screen, and the longer he stared the more he could feel guilt rising
in his throat. It wasn't right, to kill a friend. But he shook his
head; the prisoner's file was marked Blackout 1 Solitary. One
was not awarded that level of incarceration without a serious cause.
“Please
check the video feeds from your end, Central, that's all we ask.”
The voice from perimeter control was resigned.
Sighing, the
man in Central Control complied. In a flash of rebelliousness he
almost hoped that someone would be decent enough to break the
prisoner out. He gestured to his console and the thin glass
omni-monitor reacted, spitting out a stream of visual data for his
perusal. He frowned as he watched the data flow past on the screen;
something didn't look right at all. He hesitated, then typed in a
command. The computer failed to respond. Typing again more
frantically, he again entered the same command. Still, nothing
changed. He tapped his headset.
“Perimeter?
I can't switch over my video feeds. Can you?”
Tapping from
the other end, then a low growl. “Dammit, I can't either. Check the
bio-sensor switches?”
Captain James
had broken out in a cold sweat as his fingers flew over the keyboard,
and his stomach sank as the computer again failed to respond. “No
bio-sensor control either from this end,” he croaked.
The Perimeter
officer could be heard pounding his desk in anger. “Has the command
line been hacked? Can you trace the source?”
Captain
James typed away madly on his console, but before he could pull any
meaningful data the main monitor suddenly changed. The video feed of
the sleeping prisoner flickered, pixelated, then abruptly morphed to
an image of an empty cot in the same cell. In another split second,
words appeared superimposed over the video feed. They said: LET
THERE BE LIFE.
The earpiece in the captain's ear exploded in a violent string of
curses, and he could hear the main alarm beginning to bellow over the
radio. “Do you see this, Central?!” the Perimeter man shouted at
Captain James. “Do you see this? The system has been breached!”
“I see it,”
Central replied, fear palpable in his voice. “Run a full system
rescan and lock everything down now!”
“We just did
that!” Perimeter said furiously. “Whoever breached the feed is
gone, though.”
“Get some of
your men down there,” Captain James said through gritted teeth,
“and do a physical assessment on the status of the prisoner. He
couldn't have gone very far.”
No voice
answered but he could hear the sirens wailing and the trampling of
feet in the background. It was obvious they were already doing just
that. He waited a tense thirty seconds, a minute, two minutes. He
pushed his mic nearer his mouth. “Perimeter control, what is the
status of the prisoner?” Another thirty seconds elapsed, and he
repeated the request. No answer. Then the sound of the headset being
reinstalled on someone's head and the familiar voice returned.
“He's gone.”
The Central
officer's jaw fell. “What?”
“He's gone.
It's like he was never here. I'm not even sure how long he's been
gone.”
The captain
began to tremble. This was awful. He tapped his screen in a silly and
futile attempt to bring back the image of the sleeping man on the
monitor. However, the bed on the screen remained empty, and the
ominous text persisted. He looked closer and his jaw began to work in
realization.
“Perimeter,
this wasn't just a breach.”
The distant
voice was puzzled as well as angry. “What do you mean?”
“This was a
taunt.”
“A taunt?”
“'Let There
Be Life'...that's the Verité
hacker group's MO. They spray paint that everywhere. Verité
is taking responsibility for the jailbreak.” Captain James didn't
sound as if he himself entirely believed what he was saying. His hand
shook. “And if they hacked the system as far as Level Three, then
they must know about the Complex too.”
The
Perimeter Control man audibly gulped. His voice emerged almost in a
stutter. “They-how-how could they possibly know? Nobody knows about
the Complex!”
“I
think someone does now.” The Central officer clenched his fist hard
until the knuckles turned white; equal parts relief and terror
gripped him. “This was supposed to be all over within five hours or
so. We gave our assurances to the Secretary himself.” He paused,
then added: “I think we need to call the Secretary's office.”
The
Perimeter man failed to respond. Only heavy breathing came over the
headset. Captain James continued. “I will make the call. He needs
to know. Now.”
“Yes,”
Perimeter croaked back. “He ought to know. Although, what do you
think he'll do?”
The
Central officer sweated as he punched up the Secretary's office on
his console. “I don't know,” he said, “but it had better be
damn good.”
₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪
The
aide's knees were close to buckling underneath him as he placed the
tablet on the heavy oak desk. “The prisoner in Cell Block 3-2 has
escaped, Mr. Secretary, and we have no idea how.” His voice emerged
half-baked and tremulous.
The
man sitting behind the desk regarded the aide with curiosity, then
slowly picked up the tablet and looked intently at the image on the
screen. He brushed long brown hair back from his eyes and squinted up
at the terrified aide standing before him. “No idea?” he inquired
mildly. “You have no
idea?”
The
aide shifted uncomfortably, sweat beading on his forehead. “The
security system was breached, to be more accurate. And the prisoner
escaped. We have no idea where the breach happened or how. Two guards
are also dead.”
The
Secretary blinked and leaned back in his huge leather chair, his
expression thoughtful and his large green eyes darting about. He put
his fingers together and sat for several seconds in silent thought.
Finally he stirred.
“This
is most unfortunate,” he remarked almost offhandedly, standing
slowly and walking to the window in a deliberate fashion, his metal
cane creaking on the floor. In the darkened office the tall window
let in a dramatic shaft of afternoon sunlight that sliced through the
dust and threw the oak furniture into sharp relief. It also
illuminated his aging face and piercing eyes, and he stood and
frowned down at the urban world through the glass.
“Verité
is growing bolder.” He turned to the aide and handed the tablet
back. “How far did they penetrate our security protocols?”
“Level
Three, Mr. Secretary.”
“Hmm.
And the Complex is right next door.”
“Yes,
Mr. Secretary.” Sweat rolled into the aide's eyes.
“So
Verité must be aware of its existence by now, perhaps?”
“We're
ninety-nine percent certain they are, yes.”
The
Secretary's gaze was once again captured by the view from the window.
His eyes twitched but otherwise nothing else moved. He heaved a long
burdened sigh. “The plan will continue to proceed, albeit on an
accelerated timetable. Verité will be emboldened to act quickly in
the wake of their success. What is the status of the woman?”
The
aide looked confused. “Miss McLean, you mean?”
“Who
else?” The Secretary smiled. “How has the vetting process gone?”
The
aide cleared his throat and buried his face in his tablet. He tapped
the screen several times until the correct personnel file popped into
view, then turned the device around so the older man could see. “She
is clean. Thoroughly vetted, no skeletons in her closet other than a
misdemeanor in vocational school involving a hacking prank. Solid
party credentials. The only small point of concern is her parents...”
The
Secretary breathed slowly and nodded, pressing his weight onto his
cane. “I knew her parents,” he said softly, almost intimately.
Shaking himself, his voice reverted to a more business-like tone as
he continued, “But they will not be a point of concern. Have
Holloway make the pitch to her as soon as he can. We need her.
I...need her.”
The
aide bowed slightly and ran from the room.
The
Secretary cocked his head at the windowpanes; they were covered in a
thin layer of dust. He put out his index finger and wrote “ Verité”
on the glass in the dust. Then, with a sudden slash of the same
finger, he cut a line through the word. He smiled and returned to his
desk.
Reach Chapter 2 here!
Reach Chapter 2 here!
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