Deadlock (18 page)

‘I’m back for now,’ Otto said, his expression suddenly becoming more serious. ‘I’m afraid there’s good news and there’s bad news. Come on, let’s sit down and I’ll tell you all about it.’

The four of them walked back to the sofa and sat down. Otto explained exactly where he had been for the past few months and exactly what it was that he’d been doing. He explained how they now had an idea where Laura and the rest of the captured Alpha students were, but that there was still a lot that needed to be done before they might be in a position to rescue them.

‘So that’s why H.I.V.E.mind has been offline all this time,’ Shelby said as Otto finished. ‘You had big blue rattling around inside your noggin again the whole time.’

‘Well, he’s not there right now,’ Otto said, tapping the side of his head. ‘He’s back in the school datacore, but yeah, he’s been along for the ride the whole time.’

‘So how long before we can mount a rescue operation?’ Wing asked.

‘Hopefully not long,’ Otto said, smiling at his friend’s assumption that they would all be going to find their friends. ‘I need to spend some time with H.I.V.E.mind and see if we can crack the encryption on the Disciple beacon. If we can, we can begin tactical planning immediately. If we can’t, well, frankly, we’re back to square one.’

‘Do you think it’ll work?’ Shelby asked. ‘You think you’re going to be able to work your mojo on this Disciple gizmo?’

‘Honestly, I’m not sure,’ Otto said. ‘We’ll see. It depends on whether or not my plan for cracking the encryption is sound. The theory’s good, but theory’s one thing, practice is another.’

‘Is there anything we can do to help?’ Franz asked.

‘Not right now, but if we do find out where the Glasshouse is I want you with me when we go in. Not just because you’re my friends, but because you also just happen to be the best damn infiltration team I know.’

‘Just try and stop us,’ Shelby said. ‘I’ve been getting cabin fever without you around to get us into trouble.’

‘Awww, never knew you cared, Shel,’ Otto said with a wink.

‘You think Nero will allow us to come with you?’ Wing asked with a slight frown. They all knew that Nero was notoriously reluctant to deliberately place his students in harm’s way.

‘Yeah, I do,’ Otto replied.

‘And why is that?’ Wing asked.

‘Because I have absolutely no intention of giving him any say in the matter.’

chapter eight

‘It’s not your fault,’ Nigel whispered as he and Laura walked down the featureless grey concrete corridor that led to the Glasshouse’s mess hall. In the hours since Tom’s death Laura had run the gamut of emotions from grief to rage, but now she just felt numb.

‘It doesn’t matter whose fault it is, Nigel,’ Laura said, shaking her head. ‘Tom’s dead, nothing’s going to change that.’

Penny walked towards them from the opposite direction, her face ashen.

‘Penny,’ Nigel said as she approached. ‘I’m so sorry, we had no idea that –’

‘Save it, Nigel,’ Penny snapped, staring at him with bloodshot eyes. ‘Just stay away from me, OK?’

‘Nigel’s not to blame,’ Laura said. ‘I –’

‘I don’t care,’ Penny snapped. ‘Do you understand? I . . . don’t . . . care! You’re all to blame, you, Furan, Nero, this whole insane world that we were both dragged into. I never asked to be part of this, neither of us did, and now it’s cost the life of my best friend and I’m still stuck in this godforsaken hell hole. Well, I hope it was all worth it and that your stupid little plan works, but you know what? I don’t care, because none of it’s going to bring Tom back, is it? Nothing is. So just stay the hell away from me.’

Penny pushed past Laura and walked away, her shoulders shaking as she broke down sobbing again.

‘Come on,’ Nigel said, putting a hand on Laura’s arm. ‘There’s nothing you could say that would make her feel any better right now.’

‘You don’t get it, do you, Nigel?’ Laura said, glaring at him. ‘She’s right. We’re all better off on our own – that’s the only way we’re going to survive this place.’ She pushed his hand off her arm and walked away. Deep inside her, she felt something fragile finally break. Something new was growing to replace that last vestige of hope that she had been protecting for all this time, something, hard, sharp and cold.

At the same instant, on the other side of the Glasshouse, a camera drone sent a status report to the facility’s central mainframe. The viral payload within that data packet was unleashed, spreading through the network like an invisible wildfire, as it searched relentlessly for just one thing – a route to the world outside.

Otto sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of H.I.V.E.mind’s central datacore and took a long deep breath. He wasn’t even sure if what he was about to attempt was possible, but he had to try regardless. In all likelihood it was the only chance they had of ever finding the Glasshouse and rescuing their friends. Professor Pike stood off to one side watching a monitor that displayed numerous separate windows, all filled with diagnostic readouts. Wing, Shelby and Franz had wanted to be there, but Otto had asked them not to come. He’d told them that he didn’t want any distractions, but the truth was he had no idea what effect what he was about to try might have on him and he didn’t want them to be there if something went wrong.

Otto picked up the headband that lay on the floor in front of him, cables trailing away from it that fed directly into the giant central column that was H.I.V.E.’s central computing hub. He placed the device on his head and adjusted it till it was comfortable. Then he picked up the Disciple tracking device, cradling it in his lap.

‘Are you ready, Otto?’ H.I.V.E.mind asked, his blue wireframe head hovering above the pedestal in front of the core.

‘No, not really, but let’s try this anyway,’ Otto said with a lopsided smile.

‘As you wish,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied with a nod.

Otto closed his eyes and the fibre-optic cables linking him to the core began to pulse with light. He could have used his abilities to connect with the core, but that would have taken extra effort and he wanted to save his strength for the real test to come. A direct connection was far more efficient.

‘Activating ghost protocols,’ H.I.V.E.mind said calmly, ‘opening all sockets, engaging datastreams in five, four, three, two, one . . . activate.’

Otto gasped, his head thrown back and eyes wide. For a moment he felt as if his whole consciousness was compressed down to an infinitely dense point and then it exploded, racing across the internet in all directions, travelling at the speed of light and he was lost. There was no Otto any more, just a vast amorphous cloud with only the vaguest sense of self-awareness, like a fleeting memory. This was something close to omniscience, his mind stretched impossibly thin and yet bombarded from all directions with an endless torrent of limitless information.

Otto
, a voice called from nowhere,
listen to me. I have been here, I have felt this, you must focus or you will be lost
.

The entity that had once been called Otto felt a nagging sensation, like a tiny insect bite. The distraction was annoying at first, but then it began to coalesce into something more, an idea, a concept of self. Somewhere deep within the cloud a tiny voice cried out, struggling to make itself heard over the cacophony of endless data.

‘Help me,’ Otto whispered into the void.

Back in H.I.V.E.’s datacore Professor Pike watched Otto’s biometrics with a deepening frown. His heart rate was dangerously high and his brain activity was literally off the scale, the software reporting it as an error, incapable of understanding the data it was receiving. Otto had not moved; his head was still thrown backwards, his blank eyes staring unblinking at the ceiling far above. The Professor glanced towards Dr Nero whose hand was hovering over the kill-switch that would instantly sever the connection between Otto and the core.

‘Not yet,’ the Professor said, shaking his head, ‘give him a few more seconds.’

Elsewhere, Otto’s consciousnes spread thinner and thinner and within the tiny shred of awareness that he retained he experienced an instant of pure animal fear as he felt himself fading away.

Your name is Otto Malpense
, a voice said calmly.
You are currently sitting in the datacore of the Higher Institute of Villainous Education. You have to listen to me. My name is H.I.V.E.mind, I am an artificial intelligence, I am your guide, but more than that, I am your friend.

Ever so slowly, somewhere within the cloud of data, a swirling mass began to form, slowly taking shape, until hovering in the darkness was a humanoid shape made of golden light surrounded by countless millions of glowing streams that flowed away from it and into the blackness.

‘My God,’ Otto said as the glowing blue figure of H.I.V.E.mind appeared in the void in front of him, ‘the power.’

Otto
, H.I.V.E.mind said,
you must focus. Remember why we are here
.

‘But I could fix everything,’ Otto said. ‘A new start. A new world – everyone sharing in this under my guidance.’

I have only ever heard one entity speak like that before Otto
, H.I.V.E.mind said.

‘Overlord,’ Otto whispered.

Yes. You must not give in to the temptation to rule. You must harness that power and direct it to break the encryption on the Disciple device. That is all.

Otto nodded. H.I.V.E.mind was right; it would be all too easy to give in to the near limitless power that he had at his fingertips at that moment, but that was not why he was here. He focused on the device resting in his hands back in the datacore and suddenly a bright red glowing filament appeared, hanging in the air in front of him. He willed his virtual form to follow the filament, gradually accelerating until he was flying along it at impossible speed. Ahead of him was a solid red wall that the filament passed straight through. Otto slowed as he approached the wall and drew upon the power that was now available to him.

All over the world, digital devices of all descriptions, from supercomputers to smartphones, experienced a sudden drop in performance as their processors were all simultaneously tasked with cracking a tiny piece of a vast puzzle. For years to come, experts would debate what had caused what came to be known as ‘the big dip’. Some claimed it must have been a sophisticated virus of some kind, others that it must have been sunspot activity. None of them guessed that all of these devices were being harnessed in the single greatest piece of parallel computation in history. Otto felt the calculations coursing through him, as he acted as a conduit to the near boundless power that so many devices acting in unison contained and slowly the wall in front of him began to crumble.

In the Glasshouse the Disciple datacore triggered its highest-level alarm as it detected an intrusion threat within its own systems. The technician who was manning the security station frowned as he read the messages that were flowing past on his screen.

‘That’s impossible,’ he muttered to himself. He ran a couple more checks and his eyes widened in surprise. Impossible it may have been, but it was happening right now regardless. He picked up the phone next to his station and frantically punched in a number.

‘Ma’am, we have a potentially serious breach of the Disciple network taking place,’ the technician explained quickly. ‘I need you up here right away.’