Joe Ledger: Code Zero Part 9

On the other half of the table six devices were in various stages of a.s.sembly. A FedEx carton filled with brightly colored vinyl backpacks stood open at the end of the table. Each pack waiting to be filled.

When Parker thought about those boxes, he smiled.

Maybe it was a revenge thing after all. Just a little. A baseball bat upside the head of the kind of people he fled from when he was nine. Foster parents who think orphan kids are cash cows, dogs to whip, or something to stick their d.i.c.ks into. People like the losers at child welfare who can't think their way around regulations in any way that does real good for the kids in the meat grinder. Politicians who f.u.c.k up the system with regulations because they're in the pockets of landlords, big business, credit card and health care companies.

So, yeah. Revenge, not politics. He didn't want to see the system changed. He wanted to see it burn. Then he wanted to dive into those flames, let them consume him, and vanish into ash and smoke.

That's what Mother Night promised him.

It's what she whispered in his ear that first day.

The whole thing started weirdly. He came home from a day of panhandling at a long traffic light on Sand Hill Lake Road in Orlando and found his door ajar. At the time, he was squatting in a foreclosed house miles away from the tourist areas. The house was in a pretty good neighborhood, but there must have been some kind of legal thing going on about the t.i.tle, because it remained empty for over a year. Parker moved in, sealed some windows with black plastic sheeting to keep light from escaping, had a friend help him move his furniture in, and took possession. He figured he had a month before he would have to move. That timing seemed to work for him. If the place was s.h.i.ttier, then he might have stayed three months.

But when he came in that day he saw an envelope on the floor. His name was written on it.

Parker wasn't sure how to react to that. Run, or be relieved because this was probably from someone he knew. He slit it open with his knife. Inside was a short letter and a key. And two twenty-dollar bills. Crisp and new. The letter read: Parker ...

You are not in danger. I will never hurt you. This key will open a box at the Your Mailroom office on International Drive. Inside are gifts. If you want to use them to help me, then I welcome you. If you don't want to help me, keep the gifts and use them to find your happiness. You are under no obligation.

I have been where you are. Every night when I close my eyes I can see the monsters and I can hear the echo of my own screams. This country has betrayed its own people. It has a cancer of the soul. The only action is direct action. I am going to cut the heart out of this country. I will light a fire that no one can ignore.

I will do this for you and for me and for all of us.

I cannot do this alone.

It was printed on a computer, but it was hand-signed.

Mother Night That night Parker got some friends and moved his stuff out of there. Over the next few days he began casually pa.s.sing the Your Mailroom place, checking it out. It was one of those stores where you could rent a mailbox. It gave you a mailing address, and it was used by a lot of squatters. Parker never used it, but he knew people who did. He also knew that cops were aware of this, too.

It took almost three weeks of burning curiosity and nearly crippling paranoia before he walked into the mail service store and used the key. He waited for a time when it was busy, when there were a lot of people in there. He slipped in, opened the mailbox, and peered inside. There was a computer case. Old and battered. Parker bit his lip as doubt chewed him. Then he s.n.a.t.c.hed out the bag, slung it over his shoulder, relocked the box, and got out of there.

An hour later, when he was in a quiet, secure place, he opened the bag.

Inside was the MacBook along with all the necessary cables and chargers. Cards for Starbucks, Panera, and other places that had free wi-fi. He later discovered that each card had one hundred dollars on it, and when they got low they were recharged by someone else. There was an envelope in one pocket of the bag that contained thirty twenty-dollar bills. The last parcel included in the bag was a thick stack of CD-ROMs loaded with games. Edgy stuff. Games that challenged him. Parker had played enough stolen games to be very good.

And there was another note.

When you trust me, when you are ready to help me light the fires, send me an e-mail to the address below.

It was signed by Mother Night, and below her name was a Yahoo e-mail address.

All of that was months ago.

Parker had learned to trust Mother Night.

He had learned to love her.

Every night he played the games. The package had included multiple versions of Grand Theft Auto, as well as select versions of G.o.d of War III, Manhunt, Dead Rising, MadWorld, Saints Row 2, Gears of War, Postal 2, Call of Duty, Splatterhouse, and Solder of Fortune. Plus there were other games in there, stored on disks with t.i.tles handwritten on them. Anarchy I through IV, and one highly technical though very difficult strategy game called Burn to Shine, which had one side adventure in which you had to break into a high-security government facility. That one was a real b.i.t.c.h.

Parker later learned that when he played those games his scores were sent to Mother Night. Every time he beat a difficult level on a speedrun, she sent him money and food along with notes of praise.

Those notes were the only praise Parker ever remembered receiving from an adult. If there had been others in his life, the meat grinder had torn them from him.

Mother Night sent him links to videos in which he could see her and hear her. She was beautiful. Asian, like him, but maybe black, too. Or something. Her skin was darker than an Asian's, and she had a lot of piercings, dark gla.s.ses, and a wig. A disguise, but that was okay. That was smart.

Some of those videos had been recorded for him alone, and in those she said his name and spoke as if he were in the same room with her.

At other times the video was clearly intended for multiple viewers. A family. Her family. A family to which he belonged, and wanted to belong. But a family he knew nothing about. Not its faces, not its names, and not its numbers. From the way she spoke, though, Parker had the impression that there were a lot of people out there.

Like him.

At first he was ambivalent about that. Jealous that there were others she cared about. But he knew that was sentimental and stupid. Later he came to appreciate the fact that he had siblings for the first time in his life. Sure, in a way this was another foster family, but before Mother Night he had never felt like he belonged. And he'd never felt like he was understood.

Month after month the videos came, and he quickly discovered that when he went back and tried to view them again, they were gone.

Smart.

So smart.

Then today, a video had just popped up on his computer. On his laptop and, he later learned, on millions of computers, and all over TV and the Net.

Mother Night spoke to the whole world.

However, buried within that global message was one directed only to the members of her family. And to him.

She'd said, "Mother Night wants to tell all of her children, everyone within the sound of my voice, all of the sleeping dragons waiting to rise-now is the time."

Those were her words.

He smiled with such deep contentment that it was nearly o.r.g.a.s.mic.

He could almost smell the sulfur on the match as she struck it.

You have to burn to shine.

Parker got up from his computer, crossed the room to the table, and completed the last few small steps necessary with the waiting devices. Then, still smiling, he began carefully placing each device into a separate backpack.

Chapter Fifteen.

The Hangar Floyd Bennett Field Brooklyn, New York Sunday, August 31, 6:36 a.m.

Nikki Bloomberg was the third most senior member of the DMS computer division. Only Yoda had more seniority, and then of course there was Bug.

Nikki had been part of Bug's team for nearly five years and she loved her job. Even though she worked in a gla.s.s-walled office buried a hundred feet below Floyd Bennett Field, she felt like she was an international woman of mystery. A superspy with superpowers. Working with MindReader had that effect.

Each senior member of the computer team-variously known as Bug's Thugs, the Igors, or the Nerd Herd, depending on who was sending the e-mail-ran a different aspect of the MindReader network. Yoda was head of cyberintrusion, and it was his job to make sure that no opposing system could lock its doors to MindReader. That meant that he had to write code or edit code all day. It wasn't a job Nikki wanted.

Her job was to manage the pattern search team. MindReader had more than seven hundred pattern recognition subroutines, each of which could be used separately and all of which could be combined into a ma.s.sive a.s.sault on raw data. All day long her team received notices in the form of small pop-up windows with keywords and case numbers. Each pop-up contained a hot link to a data cascade where everything related to the keyword was collated. It took a certain kind of mind to be able to interpret that data and make sense of it. Nikki had that kind of mind. A super a.n.a.l-retentive skill set that was unattractive in, say, relationships, but invaluable within the DMS. She also had a photographic memory, without which she could never even attempt that job.

She was at her desk rerouting data threads from the pop-ups when a new one blipped onto her screen. This one came with a red flag in one corner, indicating it might belong to one of the major active cases. Nikki opened the link in the pop-up and suddenly her screen was filled with a fragment of a video clip. An Asian woman speaking directly to the camera. The phrase MindReader had plucked out and flagged for attention was this: "'Cause remember, kids, sometimes you have to burn to shine."

The software pulled the words burn to shine out of the sentence and floated them as text on the screen. The file to which this was attached was one of Joe Ledger's.

The Mother Night case.

One of the few DMS cases that was unsolved.

"Oh my G.o.d," breathed Nikki. "She's back."

She hunched over her computer and began hitting the keys that would ring alarms all through the halls of power.

Interlude Three The Hangar Floyd Bennett Field Brooklyn, New York Seven Years Ago Artemisia Bliss sat at one end of a ma.s.sive oak conference table. Three people sat at the far end. Dr. William Hu and two strangers, a big white man and a short black woman. The woman looked oddly like Whoopi Goldberg. She could have been her twin, except that she had eyes that were as flat and cold as a Nile crocodile and a mouth that was permanently set in a frown of disapproval.

Hu said, "You understand that anything we discuss here is strictly confidential."

"Okay," said Artemisia. "Do I need to sign some kind of nondisclosure form?"

The black woman's disapproving mouth hardened.

The big white man opened a briefcase but instead of producing government forms, he removed a package of Nilla wafers, opened it, selected a cookie, bit off a corner, and munched quietly. He placed the package on the table but did not offer a cookie to anyone else. No one asked him for one.

Artemisia waited. She didn't know who he or the woman was, but it was clear from Hu's demeanor that they were his superiors. Hu's manner had become immediately deferential when they'd entered this conference room, particularly to the white man. The big man looked sixtyish, but it was the kind of middle age that came with no diminution of personal power. He wore a very expensive Italian suit, an understated hand-painted silk tie, and tinted sungla.s.ses that effectively hid any expression in his eyes. The lenses looked flat and did not appear to have any corrective curves, so she guessed that their sole purpose was to keep people from reading his eyes. That was interesting. Either he was the most closed-in person in the world, or he was aware that his eyes were the only weak link in otherwise impervious armor. Whoever he was, Artemisia was certain that he was in charge of this place. He had a natural authority and sense of power that was palpable, and yet he did not appear to be deliberately projecting an alpha dog vibe. He simply was the alpha. Here and, she thought, probably in most situations in which he found himself. She was certain she'd never met anyone quite like him.

His vibe was extremely scary. And s.e.xy.

She doubted he would have showed off by making a comment about her name and the connection to the artist, as Hu had done. While with Hu that was mildly flattering, the doctor's energy was more earthy and real. This man was far more aloof, and probably didn't need the ego stroke of wanting to appear hyperintelligent and well-informed.

Artemisia realized that she feared him for reasons she could not adequately understand. She was in the presence of power on a level she'd never previously encountered.

And the woman, the Whoopi Goldberg with 'tude, had a lot of power, too. But it wasn't quite on the same level.

After the cookie was gone, the big man took a handkerchief-a real one, not a tissue-and dabbed at the corners of his mouth. He folded the handkerchief neatly and placed it on the table beside the box of cookies.

"My name is Church," he said, then nodded to the black woman. "This is Aunt Sallie."

"'Aunt Sallie'?" echoed Artemisia.

"You can call me Auntie. Call me 'ma'am' and I'll kneecap you." She wasn't smiling when she said it.

"Noted," said Artemisia.

"Dr. Hu speaks very highly of you," said Church.

Artemisia nodded. She was letting her instincts guide her, and the remark did not seem to warrant a verbal reply. The man was stating a fact, not asking for agreement.

"Your profile suggests that you would be a good fit for us."

"May I ask who 'us' is, exactly?"

"We'll get to that." Church studied her for a long time. A longer time than was comfortable, and she began to fidget. She hated that, because she never fidgeted. It was a point of pride for her. The big man ate another cookie. Slow bites, a lot of measured chewing. A dab of the handkerchief. Without consulting any paperwork or computer, he said, "You were first in science and math in every school you've attended. You graduated from high school at age fourteen, you received special consideration that allowed you to earn a doctorate at twenty. You don't appear to have much in the way of personal politics."

She resisted the urge to give a dismissive shrug. Instinct told her that a reaction like that would cast her in a poor light. Probably in the black woman's eyes and definitely in the big man's eyes.

"I care more about people than political parties," she said.

"Oh, jeez," sighed Aunt Sallie.

Mr. Church gave a faint smile. "Would you mind elaborating on that?"

Artemisia felt her face growing hot. Despite her best effort she'd put her foot wrong. Still, she kept her voice controlled, her manner calm. Much calmer than she felt inside.

"I don't know enough about politics to have an opinion that would matter. Not when it comes to Republican and Democratic p.i.s.sing contests. If we're talking the politics of science, then I land on the humanist side."

"Meaning-?"

"Meaning that science should benefit humanity. I have a private loathing for any science that exists for its own sake. Science should be used. It should be applied. The end result of research is practical and beneficial application."

"What about military applications?" asked Mr. Church.

"Is that a trick question?"

"No."

"I won't build nukes, I won't create bioweapons. Beyond that ... if you're talking about drone technology that can fight an enemy in a modern combat scenario while keeping U.S. troops out of the line of fire, then ... sure. I'd do that. Would I build a s.p.a.ce-based laser system so the CIA can a.s.sa.s.sinate whoever's on their s.h.i.t list, then no. That's bulls.h.i.t and it's too much of a gray area."

"You distrust the Agency?"

"Of course."

"Why?"

"Because they're untrustworthy."

"How so?"

She took a moment to find the word that she thought would work best. "They're inept."

The Whoopi Goldberg lookalike turned away to hide a smile. Dr. Hu studied his nails.

"What makes you say that?"

Now she did shrug. "Because they get too much press, and none of it's good."