“Amazing,” I mutter, totally sincere. I had no idea that Dad was involved in such an awesome project. Although I’ve always been proud of him, now the feeling is doubled. I glance at him once again—he’s still sitting at his desk, staring at the wall—and try to catch his eye. But Dad doesn’t look happy, not one bit. His lips are drawn tight, so thin and pale they’re barely visible.
“Let me propose something, Adam,” Colonel Peterson continues. “Would you be interested in visiting the Nanotechnology Institute? I think you’d find it very—”
“Enough.” Dad’s voice is low but firm. “That’s enough for today.”
Still smiling, Peterson pivots toward him. “Your son seems interested in the technology, Tom. Maybe he could—”
“I said that’s enough.” Dad narrows his eyes. He rarely gets angry, but now he’s fuming, and I don’t know why. “We’ll continue this conversation at another time.”
“All right, all right. Whatever you say.” Peterson holds up his hands in surrender. “But you have to admit, you’re not being logical. This was your idea from the beginning. You’ve spent years working toward this goal, and Adam—”
“Enough!” Dad slams his palm on his desk and stands up. His outburst surprises me, but now I sense why he’s upset. He’s trying to protect me. He steps between my wheelchair and Peterson, looming over the colonel with his fists clenched. For a second I think he’s going to sock the guy in the nose. Peterson steps backward, frowning.
There’s a long silence. As Dad and Colonel Peterson stare at each other, a slurry of dread settles in my stomach. I’m thinking of what the hacker told me while he posed as the virtual Brittany. He mentioned an experiment. I was chosen for an experiment.
I look straight at the colonel. “Can I ask you a question now?” I point at him with my good hand. “What’s the Pioneer Project?”
Peterson’s mouth opens. For a couple of seconds he gapes at me, his face reddening. Then he closes his mouth and glares at Dad. “You already told him?”
“No. I didn’t say a word.” Dad turns away from the colonel and approaches my wheelchair. His face is hard and serious. “Adam, where did you hear about this?”
“It was the hacker. The guy who took over my VR program.” The dread in my stomach gets heavier. “He said I was selected for the project. Because I’m dying. He knew about my dystrophy.”
Dad says nothing. He bites his lower lip and stares at the rack of server computers against the wall. He’s thinking.
Then someone knocks on the door to his office. Dad is so lost in thought he doesn’t react, but Colonel Peterson turns toward the door. “Come in!” he shouts.
A fat man in a T-shirt steps into the office. I can tell right away he’s from Unicorp’s tech department because all the technicians at the company dress like slobs. He has a red-and-yellow Superman logo on his T-shirt, which hangs untucked over his paunch. But Dad always treats the tech guys with respect. They know all the ins and outs of the lab’s security system, which controls everything from the network firewalls to the automated locks on the office doors.
“Mr. Armstrong?” the guy says, closing the door behind him. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
Dad snaps out of his trance. “What did you find, Steve? Anything in the network logs?”
Steve the tech guy shakes his head. “I didn’t see any unusual communications between your computers and the Internet. Over the past twenty-four hours you’ve received thirty-two emails, but they all went through the gateway server and the firewalls. Everything looks clean.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. There’s no way a hacker could’ve attacked your systems. But I noticed something else.” Steve steps toward the rack of servers and points at the computer at the bottom. “Is this the machine that’s giving you trouble?”
I feel a jolt of adrenaline. He’s pointing at the computer that ran my VR program. “Yes, that’s the one,” I say. “What did you notice?”
Steve pauses, taking a moment to gawk at me. Then he turns back to Dad. “There was a big transfer of data from the other servers to that one about fifteen minutes ago. That might explain the problems you’re having.” He takes another step toward the rack and kneels beside it. “I want to disconnect the machine and take it back to my office. There might be a bug in one of the programs on its hard drive.”
He squints at the server at the bottom of the rack, eyeing the red LEDs on the machine and the cables that connect it to the other computers. Dad bites his lip again, back in his trance.
Colonel Peterson approaches Steve and clears his throat to get the tech guy’s attention. “Some of the classified data from our secure servers may have been transferred to this one,” he warns. “You’ll have to follow the usual security protocols.”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry.” Steve edges the server out of the rack so he can disconnect the cables. “I know what to do. I’ll—”
He stops in midsentence. The fingers of his right hand are clenched around one of the cable connections at the back of the computer, and his face is fixed in a look of deep concentration. But he doesn’t pull out the cable. He just stays there, bent over the machine, as if paralyzed by indecision. His eyelids flutter and his flabby arms tremble.
Concerned, the colonel looks over Steve’s shoulder. “What is it?” he asks. “What are you—”
“No!” Dad shouts. “Don’t touch him!” Rushing past my wheelchair, he grabs Peterson around the waist and pulls him away from Steve.
Then I hear a BOOM that seems to come from the floor above us, rattling the walls and ceiling. At the same time, the lights in the office go out.
CHAPTER 3
In the darkness I hear Dad rummaging through his desk drawers. A moment later he turns on a flashlight and shines the beam on the office chair behind his desk. Then he grabs the chair and rams it hard into Steve’s quivering body.
It takes me a second to realize what’s happening—Steve is touching a live wire at the back of the server rack. He’s being electrocuted, and Dad’s trying to break the electrical connection before it kills the guy. He hits Steve again with the chair, and this time the impact shoves him away from the servers. Steve lands face-up on the linoleum floor and lies there motionless under the flashlight’s beam. His right hand looks like it’s been roasted.
While Colonel Peterson runs to the desk and picks up the telephone, Dad kneels beside Steve and starts giving him CPR. He pushes down on Steve’s chest, fast and hard, trying to restart his heartbeat. Then Dad tilts Steve’s head back and blows air into his lungs. Then he goes back to doing the chest compressions.
There’s nothing I can do except reach for the joystick on my armrest and move my wheelchair out of their way. I’m scared. The sight of Steve’s hand is bad enough, but what really gets me is the darkness. The power surge from the electrocution must’ve tripped a circuit breaker, cutting off our electricity. But then I notice that the red LEDs on the servers are still shining. Electricity is still running to the computers, but not to the overhead lights. It makes no sense. And what about the explosion I heard a few seconds ago on the floor above us? Did the power surge cause that too?
Soon I hear frightened shouts and rapid footsteps in the corridor outside Dad’s office. People are racing out of the building.
From the look on Dad’s face, I can tell that the CPR isn’t working. Grimacing, he leans over Steve and mutters, “Come on, come on,” at his inert body.