Ntshona (5 page)

At this Eve began to well up; it was the first time either of them had recounted the story since it had happened a few hours earlier.

Chris was finding Lon’s story hard to believe. Not every day does your little brother and his friends get attacked by an unknown task force. “Are you pulling my leg?” he worriedly asked.

“No,” replied Lon, “let me finish. We waited under the boat for a while, then the noise died down, but we didn’t get out from under it for a bit longer in case the people who attacked us were still in the shopping centre”. He paused to take in a large gulp of air in order to regain his composure and to try to reduce the choking sensation in his throat. He continued, “We eventually got out of the canal,” he took another deep breath, “and everyone was gone”.

Chris was more worried now. “Wha-” he gulped, “what do you mean, ‘everyone was gone’?”

“That’s exactly what I mean, everyone was gone. Nobody else was there! It was as if nothing had happened, and as if nobody had been there at all! There were no bodies, no spent bullet cases or bullet holes, and there wasn’t any blood anywhere, not even where it had fallen from Marcus’ nose after he’d been hit”.

“What the hell?” uttered Chris in disbelief. His brain started to tick as he began to deduce what he had just been told.

Eve sniffled and continued the explanation. “That’s not the end though. We left the shopping centre without checking in to the NGT system because we thought it would be better to, you know, stay off radar seeing that we didn’t know actually what happened to us, or who did it. But when we arrived at Central Station
… when we wanted to leave the NGT platform…” she sniffled again as a tear slid down her cheek, “we had to check out, and the console welcomed us instead of saying goodbye”.

Chris knew what this meant. “Crap. That means they’ve probably labelled you as a fare dodger, at least”. He turned his attention back to his brother.
“But you used your palm screen, didn’t you? So you should be fine”. Lon’s increasingly upset and worried appearance unsettled him.

“That’s another thing,” explained Lon, “our palm screens stopped working at some point, so I had to check in with a retina scan”.

“Oh crap. That means the government will probably be after you as well”.

“Yeah, so that’s why we came here; I thought it might be safer for us, and I was hoping you could help,” said Lon.

“I wonder,” added Chris, “what the shopping centre surveillance has to say. It might help to explain to the police why you fare dodged”.

“Oh yeah, I just remembered!” exclaimed Eve, “We saw part of a news report on the tele when we were on the NGT; it said there was no surveillance footage! The cameras were all offline”.

“That’s right!” Lon quickly added. “The news report said that there was a flash of light, then the surveillance feed was cut!”

“And that’s when your palm screens broke,” explained Chris. He got to his feet and walked to the door they came in through. As he pulled it open music spilled in from the other side. He left the door ajar and momentarily disappeared from view, returning several moments later along with Tan. The door was closed behind them, once again ending the flow of sound from the workroom.

“I take it you need my expertise for something?” speculated Tan.

“We might,” said Chris.

Both Lon and Eve were puzzled. It seemed as though Chris had an idea of what was going on.

“Explain to him exactly what you’ve just explained to me,” Chris said to the two upset people sitting on the couch.

Lon and Eve repeated their story for Tan.

“Wow, sorry that you had to go through that,” said Tan in response to their recounting. “That really sucks”. He turned towards Chris, “I guess you want me to give you my opinion, right?”

Chris nodded. “First of all, tell me what you think the flash was”.

“It was obviously an EMPG,” said Tan, confidently.

“EMPG?” repeated Lon.

“What’s an EMPG?” asked Eve.

Lon answered, “A grenade”.

“An ‘Electromagnetic Pulse Grenade’, to be exact,” iterated Chris. “It’s a type of bomb that emits a large pulse of electricity to disable certain types of circuitry”. He turned back to Tan and inquired “What else do you make of it all?”

“Well,” began Tan, “we don’t know enough to make a decent assumption, but I reckon it was funded by someone with a lot of money”.

“That could be anyone though,” stated Eve despondently, “there are too many people in this city with too much money”.

“True, but we have more information to work with,” said Tan. “Think. How could they have removed the bodies from the shopping centre?”

Eve winced when she heard this. She was hanging on to the hope that her friends were not simply “bodies”. “Well, there were probably a lot of attackers that took everyone away,” she said.

“But how did they get them out of the building?” asked Chris.

“The NGT would have been the quickest way,” said Lon.

“And I doubt they could have used the NGT in the same way as the public, otherwise they would have been noticed,” said Tan.

Eve was not sure what Tan was getting at,
“What do you mean? Are you saying they didn’t use a public train?”

“That could be the case,” Tan said in response.

“So it was something to do with the government?” asked Lon, almost asserting his opinion.

“It could be,” said Tan, “but like Eve said before, it could be anyone with money and the right connections”.

“So we have no idea,” stated Chris. “But, that’s why I asked Tan to lend us his expertise”.

“Oh?” Tan appeared to become excited.

“Yes,” Chris began to explain, “we can easily get a map of the NGT system off the web, but we won’t easily be able to find a complete list of public or private sector companies with personal access to it”.

Eve was still uncertain of what Chris was suggesting. “I’m not sure what you mean”.

“Think of it like this,” Chris began to explain in more depth, “there are companies that have private access to the NGT system because it’s directly linked to their businesses”.

Eve nodded to indicate her understanding.

Chris went on. “Because they have private use of the system, they also have some level of business secrecy. Plus, there are companies that are physically linked to the NGT system”.

“Oh, you mean like the science centre? That has an NGT station in the building,” said Eve.

“Yes, that’s one of them,” said Tan “but there are many other businesses that have as well. Also, most of the NGT system is run by the government, just like most other public amenities in the country”.

“So it’s more than likely the government who did it?” asked Lon, intent on laying the blame on the leading party.

“We can’t tell,” answered Chris. “Not yet anyway”.

“Right then,” Tan began to walk to the room’s only workstation, “do you want me to get started?”

“Take it away,” submitted Chris.

Tan lowered himself into the chair in front the computer, and the monitor instantly powered on.

“What’s he doing?” asked Eve, again puzzled.

Lon got to his feet and walked to where Tan was now sitting. “You’re not gonna hack anything are you? Cos that’s pretty dangerous!”

“Yes, I am gonna hack, that’s my specialty” posited Tan.

“And no,” Chris continued on Tan’s behalf, “it’s not dangerous. Well, not for us anyway”.

“Huh?” Lon was not completely certain about this claim. “It is dangerous, the government can track everything you do online!”

Chris found this amusing. “Don’t you think it’s in my company’s and my employees’ interests to protect their information? I run an
electronics
business. It’s well within the law to protect our data, and we’re also more than competent enough to know how to do it”.

“But hacking is definitely a black area as far as the law is concerned! You could get into real trouble if you get caught,” argued Lon.

“The point is,” said Tan, “I won’t get caught; I ain’t no amateur! I programmed the security system for this company, as well as the security system for this whole building”.

Lon was worried because he and his friend were probably already in trouble, and his other best friends were missing with no trace, and now his brother’s company and employees may be at risk. “At least go to a different building to do it, one where they’ll never guess it had anything to do with you or this company”.

Tan again attempted to reassure Lon, “Don’t worry about that, we’ve got several splitters set up so that
if
they manage to detect my activity, they’ll think I’m somewhere in Angola. Besides, I’m hacking the NGT, not the government mainframe”.

“Fine,” said Lon, giving up. He still was not completely trusting in Tan’s confidence.

“Okay, let’s get started!” exclaimed Tan confidently. He made a sweeping gesture on the desk in front of the monitor and a keyboard appeared. He quickly began to work, “You see, each console within this company has a lot of installed security software, which I wrote, that protects each employee. What most of them don’t realise though, is that there are also provisions set up on certain computers, like this one, to aid in accessing information elsewhere, usually to keep an extended eye on our security. If we think someone is watching us, we watch them,” on the screen he was tapping regularly to switch between multiple windows, and was scanning through the masses of information displayed in each. “It’s a bit complicated to begin with, that’s why I’m using the keyboard. Okay…” he paused, “ah! I’ve found their main database”.

Eve was utterly amazed, “Seriously?! That only took about half a minute!”

Tan smirked. “Like I said, I’m hacking the NGT, not the government. Besides I didn’t say I’d cracked their database yet, I’ve only found-” he cut himself off and looked at the timer at the top of the screen, “Okay, cracked it. That took forty-two seconds. I like to speed-hack, so I installed a timer to let me know how long it takes for me to find and hack a database”.

“Jesus, that’s incredible!” exclaimed Lon, “I knew you were good, but that’s just crazy!”

“That’s why he programmed our security system,” said Chris, as if proud of his own child.

“Right, now I have the information, I just need to put it in a more presentable form,” said Tan. A few moments later the screen was displaying a list of all the companies in the city who were linked to the NGT system.

Chris turned to face the large television screen on the wall behind them and using both hands gestured as if he were stretching something across the screen, at which it powered on, but with no video signal. His next gesture was a right to left swiping motion with his left hand, which loaded the feed from the computer terminal.

All four people in the room faced the television.

There was a list displayed on-screen entitled “
Next-Generation Transport System Business Access
”. The list was surprisingly long, thus somewhat disheartening.

Chris began to read out some of the company names, “Ventotom; L
anedaming; Singleis; Daltfax; Goldtech… I’ll have to check with my lawyer about that one; Donholdings; Kinnix; Yanmedia…” he sighed, “Are they in any kind of order?” he asked Tan.

“Ah, sorry, I forgot to make it alphabetical,” Tan tapped a few times on his keyboard and the list rearranged to show only the companies beginning with the letter ‘A’.

“There are still this many?” asked Chris, becoming frustrated.

“Well,” Tan began to answer, “this is a list of both types of companies: those which only have private access to the NGT, and those which are physically linked to the NGT system”.

“Hmmm…” Chris briefly covered his mouth with his hand in his regular thinking pose. “Okay, let’s see the ones that are physically linked to the system”.

Again Tan tapped the keyboard a few times. The screen refreshed and the list had reduced drastically; all the companies that were physically attached to the NGT system could be viewed on one screen. One very large screen.

“Well! It’s an improvement!” remarked Chris.

“So what do we do now?” inquired Eve, “There’s still too much information to be of any help, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” said Tan, “but I’ve downloaded the information nonetheless, it may be of some use at some point”.

“Okay,” said Chris, “encrypt it then back it up on the server, and then do the same with your palm screen, just in case you need to
pass it on
”.

“Will do chief!” said Tan, who then commenced backing up the stolen information.

Lon was understandably frustrated. “So we’re still no further than we were before”.

“Sorry, but it would probably take us days to find something useful in that information. For now we should check the news for anything new”.

“Okay, but,” Lon turned to Tan, “if you’re still logged in to the NGT database, then can you check for Eve’s and my data? I wanna know if they actually registered us as fare dodgers”.

“Oh, yeah,” replied Tan, “good idea. It would be better to know whether the police are after you or not. What’s your ID number Eve?”