Code Breakers Complete Series: Books 1-4 (23 page)

“Isn’t this a suicide mission? Shouldn’t we have called ahead? Explained to the Family what’s happening?” Gerry said. Outside the window, he saw a group of drones shaped like birds dart in formation to flank their craft.
 

“We tried that. Jasper’s got the place on lockdown. No traffic to and from the Family’s space station. It’ll take hours for them to get reinforcements to the ground, and we don’t have the luxury. But don’t worry. I managed to get a message to the prez. Let’s just hope he believed me.”

The side of her mouth kinked up, creating a sly, knowing grin.

It quickly changed as their craft jolted violently.

“Ion blasts! We can’t take many of these. I thought you uploaded the new codes?” Len said, staring at Petal.
 

Another explosion and they began to spin. Gerry’s guts twisted, and he gripped the handholds above his head. The smell of superheated ions brought back a memory of him being chased down by a drone… of being stuck, covered in steaming hot mud after narrowly avoiding an explosion

“Try the codes again,” Len shouted.
 

Petal was already one step ahead, frantically entering data on her HackSlate. “It’s no good. Jasper’s blocked my access to the drones. He must have got to Kuznetski. I don’t have time to hack my way in…”

Gerry reached across and took the HackSlate from her. The streams of code on the display resonated with him. He’d seen instructions like this before. It was written in Helix++, and he knew the AI, with its loops-within-loops of ever-changing programs. His hands began to move of their own accord. Everything but the code faded to black, and he felt himself disconnect from reality. All that existed was his mind and the code.
 

First he took control of the Jaguar and programmed an evasion route, sending their craft higher and higher. The drones followed, keeping up with their speed. The Dome shrunk beneath them as they climbed further.
 

In the real world, someone gripped his arm, shouted something, but he paid no attention. He was one with the code now, and he manipulated a set of commands to send the craft back down towards the Dome in a wide arcing corkscrew pattern.

As they passed the drones, they fired, but their speed was too great, and they missed. The G-force pushed Gerry back into his seat, and he could feel the reverberations of explosions behind him as the drones either crashed into each other or were caught in the crossfire.
 

The Dome was no more than half a kilometre away. He could hear panic in the voices as they screamed at him, but he ignored their protests and sent the craft into a straight dive.

Gerry accessed the weapons subroutine and fired their two on-board missiles after deactivating their payloads. He didn’t want the explosion, just the penetration. They launched towards their target, and Gerry tracked their trajectory so that they flanked the craft ten metres either side of its hull. They pierced through the Plexiglas outer shell of the Dome, and the Jaguar followed, easily breaking through the weakened material.
 

The drones, however, didn’t have the manoeuvrability and stuck in their spiral descent, crashed against the exterior, smashing to pieces.
 

Gerry brought the craft into a slow dip before levelling out. He flew it across the fields of GreenWay Park and through a series of downtown districts. Accessing the city’s metro maps, he followed the magno-tracks towards the main Council district where President Kuznetski had his office. They’d arrive in less than a minute, which gave him time to search the network and assess the damage.
 

Petal was right. Jasper had blocked traffic from coming in or leaving the Dome. It was like the demon AI had entangled the entire place in thick impenetrable tentacles. He saw no way through. The sheer depth and complexity of the viral barrier attacked anything that got near it. He backed off and ran a series of identity searches. One of the benefits of the city and everyone’s inbuilt AIAs was that anyone could be found and traced.

First he checked his kids: both were alive and at their last address. He presumed they were safe—for now at least. He left a trace program running on them to alert him of their movements. Next he searched for his wife. Predictably, she wasn’t on the network, and neither was Jasper. Obviously he was cloaking them both within the confines of the AI.
 

Last, he checked the president and found him. Only his warning beacon was sending out alert messages. Code 1: the highest possible emergency. But it was no use; they just bounced back off the AI. At least he had a lock on his position.
 

Gerry set the coordinates and pulled himself out of the code. It took him a few seconds to readjust. Petal and Len both stared at him, their faces glossy with panic sweat.

“You crazy, man!” Petal said with a grin so wide Gerry could see all her teeth, before leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek.
 

Len just shook his head. “I don’t know how you do what you do.”

Gerry looked at him, thought for a while, and said with a serious tone, “Neither do I.”

They entered the presidential building. Len’s holograms led the procession, their laser barrier giving them easy access. The security team didn’t know what to make of them. They’d obviously not seen anything like it. And the fact that Gerry, the most wanted man in City Earth, was alive and in their midst shocked them into silence.
 

The route was quick and easy. The government nerve centre hadn’t really needed much better security. This was the Dome, after all—where people do as they’re told and aren’t given any reason to complain or protest.
 

Gerry approached the chamber doors to Kuznetski’s personal room. He didn’t stop to knock. Just kicked open the doors and approached the great, polished oak desk that the president was sitting over, head in his hands. His bald head shined with sweat under the lights. Patches of grey and brown on his sides were turning greyer than Gerry had remembered when he last saw him giving a public address a couple of weeks ago.
 

“They’ve gone,” Kuznetski said, looking up at Gerry. Heavy bags hung beneath his brown eyes, and the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth had deepened to rough crags.

“Who’s gone?” Gerry asked.

“Those who are taking the City from me.”
 

“We’ve come to help.”

“Who are you people?” He sat back from his desk then, taking in the scene in detail for the first time.

The elder man looked closely at Gerry for a few long seconds. A shine of recognition lit up his dark brown eyes. “How did you… you should be…”

“Dead. I know. Look, we haven’t got time for this. Just tell me what happened.”

Miralam Kuznetski slumped in his chair and rubbed his forehead. Gerry could almost hear the cogitations going through his brain. He looked up at Gerry then, regarded him and his entourage closely, and then leant forward on the desk.

“Okay. They came, took the security codes and left. I couldn’t stop them. It happened too quickly. My security… we’re not set up… how was I—”

“You couldn’t have done anything. Don’t blame yourself. Just tell me what you know about them and where they’re heading. We’ll take over from here.”
 

He hesitated, scanning Gerry and his allies. Gerry knew they must have looked like a ragtag outfit. Gerry stepped forward, leaned over the desk and stared Kuznetski in the eyes.
 

“Listen,” Gerry said, keeping his voice calm, friendly. “I need you to trust us. I could spend some time showing you evidence of what’s going on, giving you the rundown of everything that I, and my allies here, have gone through in order to get here, but frankly I’m tired, stressed, and we’re running out of time. I need you to tell me where they went, and right now. Okay?”

It was clear to Gerry the man was out of his depth. Sweat dripped from his forehead, and his jaw hung open. A vein pulsed in his temple.
 

“Come on, man,” Petal said. “We’re trying to help you here. Just tell us.”

Miralam wiped the sweat from his face, sat back and took in a deep breath. “Okay,” he said. “They went to Cemprom.”

Gerry thought back through his murky memories to his time there. So many faces flew through his thoughts, and one stuck out. His boss. Mike Welling. His brain filled in the rest, rebuilding old connections, bridging memories and building a mosaic of dread. His right hand twitched as he remembered firing the gun that put Mike out of his misery.
 

“The AIAs! Have they got into them yet?” Gerry asked.

Kuznetski squinted at Gerry. “What do you mean?”

“Jasper, the guy who is leading all this, wants to access the main city network to get to everyone’s AIA. Once he’s inside, he could wipe out every single person in this city…”

Kuznetski didn’t say anything. Just sat back in his chair and ran a shaking hand across his bald head. “They’ve abandoned me here, haven’t they?”

“They? Who are you talking about?” Gerry asked. “Wait, you’re one of the Family too?”

He nodded. “I’d hoped they would have received my alert signal. They should have come by now. But I’m stuck here.”

Petal stepped up beside Gerry. “Wait a god-damned minute,” she said, pointing her finger at Kuznetski. “If you’re one of the Family, then you must know Jasper.”

“No, no, I don’t. I’ve never been up to the station. He only came down a few months ago. I didn’t even know about it until recently. I don’t know him.”

Gerry held up his hand. It was clear he was telling the truth. The guy was panicked almost out of his skin. His hands shook like he had frostbite, and he physically pushed himself back away from Petal as she leaned towards him.
 

“I don’t care about you right now.” Gerry couldn’t hide his disdain for him and the Family. He fought to control the rising fury within himself. It seemed that Kuznetski’s connection to the Family wasn’t just through his father’s relationship with them during the war. It was clear that Kuznetski Senior was closer to the Family than most had known. “I need to know why Jasper’s gone to Cemprom. Is that where the main node is?”
 

“Yes, the central uplink. It’s in the underground secure room. No one but the Family and I knew about it. Not even you guys who worked on the algorithms and the security systems. It was supposed to be a completely ring-fenced safety measure. In case it got hacked, it was supposed to keep—”

“The Family safe? Yeah, that much is evident. Give me the codes. Now.”

Kuznetski took a DigiCard from his jacket pocket and handed it over to Gerry, who passed it on to Petal.
 

“Can you check that, Petal?” Gerry said.

She took the card, nodded, and inserted it into her HackSlate. While she was doing that, Gerry turned back to Kuznetski.

“How long ago did they leave?”

“About ten minutes. I can get you there quicker, though. We have a direct access tunnel here under the building. Not on any schematics so they didn’t know about it, didn’t even ask. Jasper seemed frantic, unfocused.”

“Yeah, coz Gez here screwed his boss right up, and he’s running scared, that’s why,” Petal said.

Gerry couldn’t help but crack the barest of smiles at her petulance and utter disregard for authority. He was reminded all over again why he liked her so much.
 

“The codes are good, Gez,” Petal said.
 

“Good. Len, can you leave some of your guys here to make sure Mr President doesn’t do anything stupid?”

“Hey, I’m on your—”

“You’re most definitely not on my side,” Gerry said as he leaned across the desk, violating his personal space. “You could have killed my kids today with your pathetic actions. Make no mistake. Whatever happens, I will be back to deal with you personally.”

Kuznetski slunk back in his chair, quivering as he swallowed.

“Consider it done,” Len said as he gestured to his hologram guards. Four of them stationed themselves in each corner of the room. They raised their arms to shoulder height, and a line of lasers connected from one hand to the other, securing the room.
 

“Show us the tunnel,” Gerry demanded.
 

The elder man nearly tripped as he rose from his chair and hurried across the polished wood floor to a section of wall. He pressed his hand against the surface and spoke aloud a series of numbers. A red LED light shone from the wall and scanned his face. There was a click from a mechanism, and the wall dropped into the ground. Ahead of them, a precisely cut square tunnel stretched off into the distance. On the floor was a single track.
 

He tapped at a control panel attached to the wall inside the tunnel. From within the darkness an amber light shone. It grew brighter as Gerry heard the telltale hum of a magno-train.
 

The white plastic carriage came to a silent stop at the head of the access way. “This’ll take you across the City to Cemprom HQ in less than two minutes. When you get there, you’ll need this.” Kuznetski handed Gerry a round disc the size of an antique dollar.

“You’ll find a single slot at the end of the tunnel. Put this in, and you’ll get access to the elevator that will take you directly to the server room. You should get there before Jasper and his people. To get there through the Cemprom building is tricky and time-consuming. There’s just a single ladder that goes down for half a kilometre.”

“Hopefully you can protect it from this AI. It can’t be taken offline, so you’ll need to find another way.”

“You better not be lying about any of this. Len’s security detail is more than capable of slicing you into pieces no bigger than this disc.” By the look on his face, Gerry knew he was being sincere. Sweat continued to drip from his face, and unsightly wet patches circled beneath his arms.
 

“I promise you, Mr Cardle, I want you to succeed as much as you do.”

“Tell me. I’m a dead man according to the system, aren’t I?”

“The lottery algorithm considered you a winner. It’s in the records.”