Seizure Page 18

  Taylor shuffled through his single-story house, flicking on lights as he went, until he came to the hallway outside his front door. He unlocked it, then pulled it open.

  A man stood in the pool of darkness. Even in the dim light, Taylor could see the man's clothes crumpled and stained black with soot. As the man came forward into the light, his face came into view.

  Taylor blinked. "Kent? Is that you?"

  "Yeah," Kent breathed. "It's me."

  "Well...this is a surprise. I haven't seen you since Sharon's funeral--"

  "I need help," Kent interrupted, "bad."

  Taylor looked him over, grimacing at the sight. "Man, you look awful. You look like you've been in a fire."

  Kent just stared at him.

  Taylor's eyes widened as the meaning of Kent's silence dawned on him. "You were in a fire? Not that one that went off a few hours ago?"

  Kent nodded. "I would've been here sooner, but I didn't have a car. Had to walk down here from there."

  "Son, you should be in a hospital. Let me get my car keys." Taylor moved to run to his bedroom.

  Kent's hand clamped around Taylor's wrist, stopping him. Kent's eyes were wide with fear as he said, "No hospital. You gotta help me. Here, now. It's not safe in a hospital for me."

  Taylor gently pried Kent's hand off his wrist. It wasn't easy. Kent was gripping him like a man on a cliff clutching a rope.

  "Okay," Taylor said. "Okay, whatever you say. Come on, sit down. I'll do what I can."

  Taylor walked beside Kent as they made their way down the hallway to the kitchen. Every now and then, Kent heaved with coughing fits, but he managed to stand upright long enough for Taylor to get him to a chair.

  In the light, Taylor could see Kent was in bad shape. His clothes had scorch marks on them in some places. His left shoe was slightly melted, and his face and arms were red with burns.

  Taylor got some towels from under the kitchen sink and began to soak them under the cold water tap. "What happened to you?"

  Kent cradled the unburned side of his face in one hand as he leaned against the table for support. "It's really complicated. You know anything about computers?"

  Taylor wrung out the towels until they were only slightly damp. "Just that they're annoying machines that swallow up anything I try to type into them."

  Kent sagged, shaking his head. "Well, it'll sound even more complicated."

  Taylor shook off the towels and approached Kent with them. Taylor looked over the burns on his skin. "Well, it doesn't look too serious. Just some first-degree burns here and there. Take off your shirt and watch."

  Kent obeyed, unbuckling his watch, and exposing his chest. Taylor loosely wrapped the cool towels around the burned areas.

  "There," he said. "Now keep that on while I get some antibiotics and something for the pain."

  "I'd appreciate it," Kent murmured.

  Taylor ran to the bathroom. As he passed down the hallway, he checked to make sure his wife was still asleep. This was too much for her. She needed her sleep.

  When he was sure she was all right, he headed into the bathroom. Opening the medicine cabinet made him glad he always kept it well-stocked. He took down a roll of gauze, tape, and antibiotic cream, as well as a syringe and bottles of a powerful analgesic.

  Taylor returned to the kitchen, where Kent winced as he pressed the damp towels against his reddening skin.

  "Better?" Taylor asked.

  Kent nodded slightly as he grimaced. "Yeah. Doesn't hurt as much anymore."

  Taylor pulled up the towels, then frowned at Kent as he looked him over. "You know the hair on the left side of your face is burned."

  He probed Kent's chest with his fingers until Kent grunted in pain. "And one of your ribs seems like it's bruised. What on Earth happened to you, son?"

  "Okay, I'll give you the Cliff Notes version," Kent said. "A friend of mine, Victor Morgan, died of an epileptic seizure, but he didn't have epilepsy. So I decided to check it out."

  "Uh-huh." Taylor peeled off the towels and began dabbing antibiotic cream onto the worst of the burns.

  "It turns out Victor was killed by a computer virus that causes fatal epileptic seizures, and it turns out someone did it on purpose. A group called the Cyberspace Liberation Front."

  "Right." Taylor unwrapped the gauze and began taping it onto Kent's chest. He tried to sound like he had the slightest clue what Kent was talking about.

  "But it turns out this virus is in almost every computer in America, if not the world, and it goes off in two days. I can't tell the police about it, because the CLF framed me for murder. And on top of it all, there's a woman the size of a Mack Truck after me, sent by the CLF. That's why I couldn't go to the hospital. She trapped me in a burning building. I'm hoping she thinks I'm dead, but if she thinks I'm alive, she'll check the hospitals first."

  "Hold still." Taylor wrapped Kent's ribcage in tape, then filled the syringe and inserted it into Kent's arm. "This injection will stop some of the pain, and this second shot is another antibiotic."

  After the second injection, Taylor stepped back to admire his work. "Well, it's as good as I can do on such short notice. I would like to give you a chest x-ray to check for broken bones, but--"

  Kent stood up, then winced at the sudden stab of pain in his chest from the movement. "No time for that. I have to track down the CLF. Can I use your phone?"

  "Sure, son. What for?"

  "I don't want to use my cell phone in case the police are checking it." Kent hobbled over to a phone mounted on the wall. "Jan's return flight to New York left hours ago. She should be home by now. I have to make sure she's okay."

  He dialed the number, then waited as the phone rang again and again. And again. The longer he waited, the deeper his frown became.

  Kent hung up, resting his hand on the phone. "That's odd. Maybe she stayed here on Arizona. I'll call the rental place to see if she turned in the car."

  Kent picked up the phone again and dialed the new number. After a brief conversation, he hung up and looked at Taylor with an expression of pure fear. "She didn't. But the rental car was found by the police in the parking lot outside GameShop."

  "GameShop?" Taylor asked. "What's--"

  "That's the building that was set on fire. That's where that big ape tried to kill me and Jan. Now she's gone." Kent punched the wall with a tightly clenched fist.

  Taylor held out his hands. "Kent, calm down. Maybe she just went to stay in a hotel somewhere. Maybe she got out and she's fine."

  Kent leaned his head against the wall next to the phone. He closed his eyes. The weariness of a thousand lifetimes flashed across his face for a brief moment. "Maybe. But I don't think so. I think she's either dead or maybe--"

  Kent hesitated, then continued, "...or maybe the CLF got her. I have to find her. Neil, I need a favor."

  Taylor looked over his dressed wounds. "Another one?"

  Kent managed to smile a little. "This one's a little easier. I need to borrow some chloroform and that gun you bought after you got mugged."

  Taylor stared at him. "You're serious? Kent, you're hurt and obviously confused. I can't just hand you a gun. I don't even understand half of what you're talking about."

  "Neil...Dad...that woman, I think her name is Sonya, she said something about going back to L.A. I'm sure that's where I'll find her, and if I find her, I'll find the CLF. If Janet's alive, then that's my best hope of finding her."

  Taylor didn't like the sound of this. Kent's story sounded like delirium, but he spoke with such determination that Taylor couldn't help believing it. But he did comment, "Do you know how big Los Angeles is?"

  Kent limped over to the kitchen table to pull on his shirt, then his coat. He winced as the clothes rubbed his wounds. "You don't know how big Sonya is. She can't be that hard to find."

  "No matter how big she is, I doubt she'll be waiting for you at the airport. You're gonna have to find her, and that could take weeks."

  Kent gingerly pulled
on his coat. "I don't have a choice. I can't just sit around and wait for millions of people to die."

  Taylor pressed on, saying, "So call the police. Turn yourself in, then tell them the story."

  "Even if I did, they'd never believe me or understand me. Finding Sonya is our only hope. For me, for Janet, for everyone. Now, either help me or kick me out. Your choice."

  Kent just stood there in front of Taylor, waiting.

  Taylor stared at him, wondering if Kent had gone insane in the last few years since they had spoken. But he knew that Kent was a man of honesty. Taylor didn't understand anything about computer viruses, let alone one that could cause seizures, but he could see Kent was hurting and willing to risk his life for something he believed in.

  Taylor sighed as he walked to his study. "I can't give you a gun, Kent. That's right out. But I can give you the chloroform. On the condition that you tell me what you plan to do with it."

  Kent grinned. When Taylor returned, Kent told him.

  19.

  JANET OPENED her eyes.

  She sat in an enormous room, what looked like the interior of an empty warehouse. Sunlight was flowing through windows near the ceiling, golden bars solidified by drifting clouds of dust. Every sound echoed off the exposed rafters, including the scrabbling of rats in the walls.

  Two people stood in front of her. One was Sonya, the massive woman who Janet realized had knocked her out. The other was a gangly man wearing a tailored suit that wasn't enough to disguise his pitifully thin frame. Janet recognized him immediately from the photos in her computer magazines. The only difference was that the man wasn't wearing his trademark smile. His face was as cold and expressionless as steel.

  "Janet Bourne," the man said, "also known online as Jaybird. It's a pleasure. I've admired your work for many years. Allow me to introduce myself. Roland Weaver, president of the Vulcan Corporation. Perhaps you know me better as Pluto."

  "Roland Weaver," Janet said. "So you're involved in this, huh? Yeah, that pretty much fits the pieces together."

  She tried to move, but found herself bound into a chair with reams of duct tape.

  Roland began to walk around her. "You spoke to Herring. I want to know what he told you."

  "Enough," Janet grunted, trying to discreetly work her hands free. "But not the truth."

  He paused in mid-step, standing in front of her. His face was cold and utterly devoid of expression. "You know the truth?"

  Janet stopped twisting her wrists and glared up at him. "Oh, yeah. I found your tricksy SETVER command in the Cerberus code just before Jungle Jane here knocked me out."

  Roland nodded as he began to walk again, disappearing from her frame of vision. From behind her, she could hear him say, "So you know the true purpose of the Cerberus virus?"

  "Yeah, and I can't believe that you would kill all these people just for money. At least Herring was doing it because he believed in something. He had a purpose. You'd destroy lives to make a profit?"

  "Why not?" Roland said, his voice circling behind her. "I've done it before."

  Janet felt his hands clamp down on the back of her chair. Roland leaned close, whispering into her ear with breath that smelled like mint. She couldn't hold back a shudder of revulsion at his closeness.

  Roland didn't seem to notice as he continued, "Computers have been a part of my life since I was twelve, when I spent months building a crude computer out of spare electronic parts salvaged from other machines. It was little more than an oversized calculator, but I had immediately fallen in love with it. It was an escape from the endless screaming and bickering of my parents who had discovered, too late, that they hated each other."

  Janet sighed. "Look, I'm not in the mood for your life story--"

  "Well, I am," Roland interrupted. "I know you, Jaybird. I've spent years studying you. And I know you'll want to hear this. Because you want to understand me."

  "I guess you don't know me as well as you think," Janet murmured, but she had to admit to herself that she was interested. She had spent several years trying to track down Pluto and figure out what made him tick. She had never suspected it was someone like Roland Weaver. For her, this was the end of a long journey.

  The chair creaked as Roland released it. He began walking around her again, his footsteps hollow in the echoes of the warehouse.

  "I spent hours tinkering with that computer, reading trade magazines to find ways to make it better. My parents hated the computer, of course. My mother kept badgering me to get rid to it, to 'go out and get a life.' I just put a lock on my door and spent even more time on the computer."

  Roland stopped. He was silent in the darkness behind her. Janet looked up at Sonya. The woman stood in front of her, massive arms folded over her chest, glaring down at Janet. She didn't seem to be listening to Roland. Her thoughts seemed focused on Janet. Judging by the look on her face, they were very dark thoughts.

  Roland broke the silence. "Then came the day when I returned home from school to find my door smashed open, and my computer gone. My mother readily admitted to getting my father to break the door down so she could get the computer. She triumphantly handed me a garbage bag with the shattered pieces of my computer inside."

  His voice took on an edge of contempt. "At dinner that night, my father said, 'Maybe now you'll get some perspective. Stop fooling around and focus on the important things in life, get things done.'"

  Roland began walking again. He came into Janet's field of vision. He stopped to glare down at her. "So I decided to do just that. Before my parents left on their monthly trip to Las Vegas, leaving me alone again, I put a crack in their car's master cylinder. The brake fluid drained out just as they reached the highway. The crash was written off as an accident, and I was placed in a series of foster homes for the rest of my adolescent life. Life was tough, but at the end of it, I got my computer back."

  Roland leaned closer to Janet's face. "I also learned a valuable lesson that shaped everything I did from then on. I learned that the world, and everyone in it, is evil. Society is designed to crush those who are different in any way. Freedom is an illusion, as well as moral laws."

  Roland straightened up and spread his hands in a calming gesture. "So I turned my attention away from humanity to computers. They are reliable, dependable, flawless. They never abandon me, insult me, or disobey me. They are perfection. I knew from the first time I ever touched a computer that they would always be a part of my life, and they have. I've built a fortune with them, and I'm about to get another."

  Janet worked her wrists in the tape again as she said, "Good for you. Are you gonna kill me now?"

  "No," Roland said. "At least, not yet. I respect you, Bourne. I've followed your career from the Liberation virus all the way down to your present career. You've even stopped a few of my viruses. You're a masterful programmer."

  Janet flashed him an exaggeratedly sweet smile. "Gee, that means a lot coming from a psycho like you."

  Sonya frowned down at Roland standing next to her, then broke her silence. "Liberation Virus? What’s that?"

  Roland looked at her with his dead eyes. "A computer virus Miss Bourne wrote about six years ago. It was designed to display a message on May 17th that read 'This Computer Has Been Liberated By The People For A Free Palestine, You Imperialist Dogs!' It was supposed to make users think the virus was politically motivated. The virus crashed hundreds of thousands of computers all over the country. Excellent work. Chaos worthy of even my talents."

  Janet ground her teeth, trying to control her temper. "Don't you dare put me in the same gene-pool with you, let alone the same category. The Liberation virus was an accident. It was supposed to check to make sure the computer it infected wasn't already infected."

  She lowered her eyes, memories of those days filling her thoughts. "But a flaw in the programming made that invalid. So the virus just re-infected the computer over and over, demanding more and more memory until the host computer slowed to a halt."

  "I
know," Roland said. "The end result was the same. Any computer infected with Liberation would cease to function. A disaster artificially-generated, just like mine."

  Janet lifted her eyes to Roland. "But I'm not you. Because I felt regret. And I made amends. I came forward to help the authorities write a vaccination program for the Liberation virus."

  Roland nodded, looking down at her. "Yes, that was your biggest mistake. As a reward for your heroism, you were arrested and charged with malicious mischief. You were sentenced to two years in prison. Doesn't that tell you anything about the injustice of our society?"

  "Yeah. It told me that society is designed to keep nuts like you in line. And it works."

  Roland nodded again, keeping his dead eyes locked on hers. "That's good. Insult me all you like. But you can no longer harm me. This warehouse is your new home."

  Roland gestured towards a TV in the far corner of the warehouse. "I'll be leaving this here for you to watch the news. Tomorrow morning, you will find your favorite shows interrupted by the hysterical terror of millions of people dying inexplicably at their computers. You will watch the blame shift to my bogus operation, the CLF, and you'll watch the beginning of my skyrocketing profits. Then you'll die."

  It took a moment before Janet realized what was happening to her. "So that's it? You're keeping me around to gloat?"

  "Exactly. Your friend, Reynolds, is dead. There is no one left to interfere with my plans."

  Janet felt a stab of grief and loneliness at the thought of Kent's death. But she didn't want to give Roland the satisfaction of seeing it. So she fought to keep her face expressionless, and her eyes focused straight-ahead.

  "See you tomorrow," Roland said. "Sonya, follow me."

  Roland headed for the large main door with Sonya following close behind. Their footsteps - Roland's expensive shoes and Sonya's sneakers - clicked and squealed in the empty warehouse. Janet watched them close the door behind them, then heard the click of a lock.

  After a few seconds, the TV in the corner lit up. It was tuned to CNN. Now her only companion was the set's endless news reports as the minutes ticked away to the end.