Authors: Dominick Fencer,Baibin Nighthawk
PART FOUR
Mark Savannah
112
At 5:40 pm Mark was fed up with staying at the hospital, he had started work early at 6:00 am that morning because there was an urgent situation in the psychiatric emergency room, and he hadn’t stopped since. Now he wanted to go home, change clothes and go running to keep in shape. He needed it.
He went out of the main entrance as always and stopped for a moment to look at ambulance traffic, apparently there had been a serious accident and he hoped that no one was in danger.
Suddenly a female voice came from behind him: "Maybe I have missed you, Mark."
Anaïs Degann smiled and winked at him while Savannah remained petrified with astonishment.
"How the hell did you..."
"Micro RF-ID tag. I stole one when I went to the laboratory with Green to see the production line, but then I needed a special micro-gun to insert it under skin. I could not steal it from Biosketch Technologies Inc., they would have noticed for sure."
"But I didn’t feel anything."
"Because you were feeling me," she replied archly. After a brief pause, she continued. "To attach me to the wall of the hangar was a terrific idea, not only because it allowed me to inject you with the micro transponder for geo-localization. I still can smell your scent on me. Now we have to trust each other, Mark, otherwise we won’t get to the bottom of this mess, and I'm not going to betray you...in any sense."
"Would you like to run?"
"Of course, I have to keep myself in shape."
"Let's go to my house, I have to change clothes. Do you have the gear for jogging?"
"I left everything at the hotel except the trainers on my feet."
"We’ll see what we can do."
Ten minutes later they arrived at Mark’s apartment, they went in and sat down at the kitchen table.
"Wait here," said Savannah, offering her a cold beer.
He returned almost immediately with a gray T-shirt and strange black pants.
"The t-shirt will be large on you, it's mine, but it will do the job. These pants are the result of washing them in hot water. What size do you take?"
"26."
"Try them on, who knows, maybe you can wear them; follow me, in the meantime I’ll get changed in the bathroom."
Mark led her into his bedroom and then immediately went to the bathroom.
Anaïs remained stupefied, Savannah had not tried to kiss her at all, she was alone in his bedroom while he was changing in the bathroom as if nothing had happened that day at Wiley Post, and as if the conversation in front of the Southwestern County Medical Center only twenty minutes earlier had never happened.
Mark had left the door open and Anaïs peered in at him in secret: he had a well-shaped and muscular body, proportionate and lean.
She thought about joining him for a moment, he was a terribly attractive and sensual man, even if he was aloof and inscrutable, then she decided to let it go. Clearly, it had been an impromptu moment for him, while the matter had taken on a distinctly different weight for her. She pulled on his shirt and tried on the pants; even if they were large, they had shrunk enough to enable her to wear them and go jogging without problems.
"Ok, I can run with these, are you ready?"
"I'm ready, let's go."
As they ran side by side, Anaïs told him how she had positioned the cameras in Bain’s office, how the replacement of the file had gone unnoticed and about the last conversation she had had with Ransley, how he had told her that the crazed pilot was a former-transplant patient involved with the "Transtem 1.1" project.
She also told him that they were starting collaboration with the European Transplant Centers and with the EMEA, even though they had no idea how to solve the problem of the brain waves. They were industrializing a project that had increasingly serious side effects and that was creating escalating aggression and violence in the patients.
"You know Mark, while he was speaking to me, Bain kissed me out of the blue..." she said, hoping to provoke him.
"Predictable, isn’t he?" he answered with little attention.
Anaïs said no more, Savannah gave no sign of irritation or interest, so she hid her disappointment and quickened her pace.
They returned home after an hour and a half and Mark poured her a glass of orange juice.
"I'm leaving for California tomorrow. I have to be geo-localized there for a couple of days, and then I'll go back to Dallas. Now, tell me, who is on your team, Mark."
He told her who Pavel Doko was and what he did; he told her about Andrew Davis; and about how he had arrived in Dallas and had joined up with David Marshall; and finally how his father’s friend Davis was working in the shadows using third parties and probably using also him, with the purpose of annihilating Walton I. Reed.
Anaïs told him what she had seen during the tour of the Biosketch Technologies Inc. laboratories with Green, the press conference that was taking place in Dallas and how today Reed was at the Pentagon to arrange an official version to be given as an explanation for the behavior of the pilot: presumably he would be prosecuted for drug use.
"Come on, Anaïs. I have a job for you," Mark said point blank leading her into the bathroom and started to get undressed.
He got in the shower and asked Skylinep92, who didn’t understand what he was going to do, to give him a towel.
"Do you want to have a quick shower?"
"That’s okay, thank you. I’ll wait for you to finish."
"I have finished, get in the shower."
"Then get out of the bathroom, please."
"But don’t be ridiculous, have you already forgotten about the hangar?"
"I haven’t, but obviously you've got some memory gaps. Get out, I'm not going to undress in your presence."
Mark handed her a clean towel, and left the room muttering.
Getting out of the shower Anaïs barely had time to put on her bra before the former British agent was back in the bathroom with her. He started to mess around with the wall cabinet and to put cotton, disinfectant, surgical suture thread, gauze, needle and needle holder and finally a sterile scalpel in the sink.
"What are you gonna do?" Anaïs asked him. She couldn’t understand where he was going with this.
"You’ll extract the transponder that you've so kindly given me, and you’ll give me a couple of stitches."
"Don’t even think about it! I'm not a nurse! No, I won't do it."
"I'm certainly not going to Marshall telling him that the sniper has found me, that she’s a woman and is Reed’s favorite pet agent, who is double-crossing Reed and that, oh, she has injected me with a RF-ID tag while..."
"Ok, enough, what should I do?"
"I’ll guide you through it, you've got a steady hand, you're a fucking sniper my dear!"
A few minutes later, Anaïs said smugly, "I gave you a Savoy knot, I love sailing. Don’t worry, I was careful to align the edges, you won’t have a thick scar. My goodness, what a face, Mark! What are you complaining about? You asked for it!"
"You hurt me so bad," smiled Mark with a grimace.
"It’s not my fault that you didn’t have an anesthetic, you could have drunk some booze like in the movies and put a handkerchief between your teeth."
"Are you staying here tonight?"
"Do you mean in Dallas? Yes."
"I meant here...damn it!"
"And where do I sleep…in the kitchen…in a cupboard?"
"What is this sarcasm?"
"I’m not available to your cravings depending on your mood, Mark. I was thinking that the other day meant something to you, but now I'm going. I'll be here in two days, so talk to you soon."
Even this time Mark didn’t reply, and Anaïs thought that he was really a tough son of a bitch.
113
Pavel knew he had little time and getting into a bunker like the one developed by Green meant incurring virtual traps and the risk of getting lost in the Minotaur’s labyrinth only to be discovered and devoured, blowing out years of work.
He was convinced that if Biosketch Technologies Inc.’s researchers had not yet found the key to the problem, the solution was bound to be in the depths of the system. First, he cloned Bain’s access code by modifying it, making it untraceable and unidentifiable. Then he began his incognito navigation.
He browsed around without dwelling on the details of how to understand the structure of the system, its organization, its many security systems, and the Biosketch Technologies Inc. activities that the system supervised. Pavel realized immediately that the system was running the entire company and the entire production chain and logistics, as well as the R&D, Organizational and Administrative structure. In fact, the research laboratories were all linked together with the production and the test area facilities. The architecture repository allowed large volumes of data to be managed and shared, as well as centralizing backup, security, access control and recovery from errors. Green was a great architect, the data flowed into several sections and subsections that had differentiated levels of access and privacy.
As he navigated the Biosketch Technologies Inc. system and the positioning of the data base on his computer, Pavel came across a directory named unequivocally: "Chess".
The professor-hacker wondered why there was a very large directory dedicated to the game of chess and, especially, who had wanted it in an environment like that. After having checked that it wasn’t a trap and verified that there was only one user in the system, Jago C. Green, Pavel went to peek at the outcome of the matches: Green had never won one.
Due to the fact that he was now fed-up with analyzing the structure and had to stop because he was beginning to feel thick-headed and slightly dizzy, he launched the .exe of the game to see to what degree of difficulty the system and the game had been programmed. Pavel, besides being a formidable mathematician, was also an avid chess player.
A couple of hours later he was still there, defying the central unit, only a call from Anna distracted him from the screen.
"Hello, Anna, still on for tonight?"
"Yes, of course, what are you going to do? Are you going to cook?"
"Actually, I’m not that keen..."
"Ok, I'll prepare sweet and sour pork with fried rice…for the children I’ll prepare some grilled meat with vegetables."
"Okay, I'll bring the beer and some ice cream. I'll be there around 8:00 pm, or is that too late?"
"That’s fine. See you later, Pavel."
"See you later. I love you."
Pavel resumed playing, the game was exciting and he had no intention of losing against a computer that responded to his moves at a surprisingly slow pace, almost human, for a last generation intelligent machine that was able to process complex algorithms.
Before leaving the Biosketch Technologies Inc. system, he transferred the data of the current game onto his computer in Sofia and erased the traces of the challenge from the system. There had been something strange about the game and he wanted to understand what it was: he didn’t understand the slow response of the computer as it contrasted with its articulate and brilliant architecture. Instead of correcting the written examinations of his second year computer science students, the professor began analyzing the moves of the game.
It was about 6:30 pm when Pavel threw up his hands in despair and leaned his elbows on the table. He felt nauseous after focusing his attention on the game for too many hours, and now he seemed even more confused than at the beginning. He decided to consult the only competent person he could without the fear of being taken for a madman.
He resumed his analysis of the data, he encrypted and sent an email on a secure communication line that Jànos Kozma had given him, then he dialed the number of the laboratory of Budapest.
"Jànos, how are you?"
"Always a pleasure to hear from you, Pavel. I was thinking of making a trip to Sofia at the end of the month, so we can meet up again. I'd like to show you some models that I'm developing and I would appreciate your advice."
"When you decide, just let me know. I'd be very happy if I you came to visit me at my place…any news?"
"No girlfriends, if that's what you're referring to; on the other hand, we talked a week ago and I haven’t done anything but sit in the lab. I’m getting a hump on my back and if a woman touches me, it will be just because as the old saying goes: ‘rubbing a hunchback brings good luck’. I see you sent me a file. The key?"
"Do you remember what stung you? That one: double vowel. Can you talk without anyone listening to us?"
"I'll call you in a moment, it’s raining here."
"And what the hell does that have to do with the line?"
"What a question! I have to go out to make sure no one can hear me. If I go outside, I’ll get wet…so give me five minutes to organize myself."
"Ah," said Pavel, who continued to pursue his thoughts that seemed senseless.
After about ten minutes Jànos called Pavel back.
"Ok, Pavel, talk…I’m out in the rain. I temporarily stole a golf umbrella from a colleague of mine. I decided that it was safer than a bench at Városliget Park under the deluge."
"I can hear loud, rumbling sounds, let's do it quickly so you don’t catch a cold. The file contains the moves of a chess game between me and a central system, a complex structure designed by an expert, perhaps the best in the world…oh my God, I guess we’re competing for that position…I need you to analyze the data and give me an answer to this curious fact. The system’s moves came slowly and in my opinion, some of them aren’t logical, but I may be wrong. It’s an unpleasant sensation that bothers me, it doesn’t seem like a match between an intelligent machine and a man."
"Okay, I’ll look at it now,” agreed Jànos. “Based on the tone of your voice, it seems you're afraid of what you're thinking: I'll call you back as soon as I have a clear idea of the issue. I like chess very much indeed, too! "