Rangan stayed cool. "You want everything, right?"
Myers narrowed his eyes at Rangan.
Kade held his breath.
"Everything," Myers said.
"I need to power it up, then," Rangan said. "We'll have to download the latest experiment results from the lab server, and spool some data down from Simonyi Field."
Myers scowled.
Fuck, Kade thought. We're busted.
Ilya spoke up, strain evident in her voice, playing her part to a T. "Jesus, Rangan, don't be so fucking helpful."
"Damnit, Ilya," Rangan snapped back. "I'm doing it to keep our friends out of jail!"
"Shut up, both of you," Myers said. "We have seventeen minutes left. Shankari, let's get this done."
"Yeah." Rangan led them to the powered-down workstation. He touched a control and it came to life. Kade stood right next to it, picked up a pen from the desk, did his best not to fidget.
Kade searched for the server inside his head as the boot sequence scrolled across the screen. Come on… Come on… Come on… The Nexus data transfer card they'd used the circuit printer to make was in place. It was flashing green. He refreshed the list of available devices in his head. Why wasn't it showing up? Where was it? Where was it?
The login message appeared on the screen: Welcome to ModOS. Enter credentials.
There. SanchezLab018 came online in his head. He navigated its folder tree. There. Copy.
Rangan flubbed his first password attempt. He shook his head. He flubbed it again, swore softly. "Sorry… just a little nervous here." [ 10 percent complete ]
Myers put one burly hand on Rangan's shoulder. "Take your time," he said. "And no tricks. Think about what you're doing here."
Kade remote logged into the machine, jumped to super-user status, got ready to tweak the file date and time stamps after the copy was complete.
[ 25 percent complete ]
Rangan nodded. He typed his password again, and he was in.
"OK, checking the lab experiments directory." Rangan browsed folders. Kade knew damn well that directory was up to date.
[ 40 percent complete ]
"Yeah, it's out of date," Rangan lied. He entered commands to recopy the data. "That should do it."
Myers's face was a mask. "Fourteen minutes left. And we still need those Nexus vials from your fridge."
[ 50 percent complete ]
Rangan nodded. "OK. Pulling down the data from last night… " He opened up a window, poked a tiny hole in the firewall to connect to Simonyi Field, started pulling down logfiles.
[ 60 percent complete ]
"This shouldn't take more than a minute or two," he explained.
It took a hundred and eight seconds.
[ 80 percent complete ]
"And copying over the documentation," Rangan said.
Myers frowned, looked like he was about to say something.
Ilya cut in, stalling, "God, can you make it any fucking easier for them?"
"Jesus, Ilya," Rangan said. "We've been over this already!"
"That's enough, both of you," Myers said. "Power this down, Shankari. Now."
The copy was 91 per cent complete. Fuck fuck fuck. It would be obvious that they'd been trying to change something!
Rangan started to object. Myers held up his hand.
"Hold on," Myers said. He brought one finger to his right ear, plugged it, looked away from them, apparently listening to someone speaking to him.
Kade held his breath.
[ 96 percent complete ]
[ 98 percent complete ]
He let his breath out. The pen was rattling nervously against the desk. Myers scowled at him in annoyance, took a half step back.
[ 100 percent complete ] Kade jumped in his terminal window to change the time and date stamps on the files. One set done, second set done…
Myers pulled his hand away from his ear, looked over at them.
"Shut it down, I said. Now."
There was a third set to do…
Rangan gulped, nodded, and issued the shutdown command.
Windows started to close. The last time stamp change… Kade hit ENTER in the terminal window in his mind, got the command running. There, it was going, going, going…
The command finished.
A split second later his terminal window flashed, then disappeared. Session disconnected by host. A moment later the virtual drive SanchezLab018 disappeared. The happy shutdown face appeared on the screen. Kade wanted to scream in triumph. He did no such thing.
"Take this down to the car," Myers told Lewis. The other officer started pulling plugs and gathering up equipment. "Now, take us to your Nexus stocks."
Ten minutes later they were back outside. It was done. Myers had everything. Well, almost everything.
Warren Becker finished reading the transcripts of the three Nexus technical briefings. It was sobering stuff. The potential for abuse as a coercion technology was huge. Slavery. Prostitution. Worse. He thought of his two teenage girls, of the things he'd seen in the field, the horrors some men were capable of. He pushed it out of his mind.
The geopolitical implications were just as bad. Remote assassination. Subversion of political enemies. Everything the Chinese were doing, available on the cheap. This technology had to be kept out of the wild.
He dictated a memo outlining what they'd found and the dangers, labeled it TOP SECRET, and distributed it to key people across ERD, Homeland Security, FBI, CIA, State, and the Pentagon.
After that he opened another file on his terminal and reviewed its contents. Presidential Order 594 – Eliminating and Preventing Uncontrolled Non-Human Intelligences. Scenario 7c – HIVE INTELLIGENCE. He stared at it for long minutes. Could Nexus be used to create Borgs? Ilyana Alexander had said as much in her interview. He dictated a second memo on that possibility, sent it up the chain to the White House. It was above his pay grade.
He checked the time. 9 o'clock on a Sunday night. Claire would be upset. He packed up his things and headed out the door. The lights dropped and the room sealed itself behind him.
There was a light on in Holtzmann's office. Becker poked his head in. Holtzmann was there, working away at his terminal.
"Martin," Becker said, "you're here late."
Holtzmann flicked his eyes at Becker. "I could say the same of you," he said. "Shouldn't you be home with Claire and the girls?"
Becker smiled wryly, hoisted his briefcase for a moment. "Heading there. What do you make of the Nexus 5 risk level?"
Holtzmann shrugged. "If Nexus 5 ever gets out, it'll spread like wildfire. Permanent integration means a user only ever needs to procure a single dose for a lifetime effect. You can't fight that on the supply side."