Seizure Page 19

  Janet waited to make sure she was alone, then released the tears that she had held back since hearing of Kent's death.

  20.

  SEVEN O'CLOCK, Tuesday morning. The Cerberus virus was due to activate in less than twenty-four hours. Kent's only hope of tracking down Pluto and Janet was to find Sonya. Sonya had to be working for Pluto, and that meant she could help Kent find him. Unfortunately, all Kent knew about her was that she lived in Los Angeles, California.

  Kent didn't want to buy a plane ticket in case Sonya was watching the airports. Fortunately, L.A. was only a six-hour drive from Phoenix. But without Janet's credit cards, Kent couldn't risk renting a car in his own name. He had to take the bus.

  Taylor helped Kent to make himself look more presentable. He cut Kent's hair to disguise the burned portions. The two men were close enough in size for Taylor to lend Kent a few t-shirts, jeans, and a light coat. As a final precaution, Kent used some of Taylor's dye to change his hair color from blond to black.

  After buying a ticket at the Greyhound bus station, Kent visited the newsstand. Taylor was right. Kent needed more to go on than just the city.

  He remembered his conversation with Janet about Sonya. If she was that big, chances were good that Sonya was involved in some aspect of professional bodybuilding. Kent bought a copy of American Warriors magazine as well as other magazines like Women's Bodybuilding, Bodybuilding Week, Feminine Physique, and Muscular Women. The man behind the counter at the newsstand looked at him a little strangely as he got Kent's change.

  After boarding the bus, Kent settled down with the magazines and began to flip through them. He wasn't sure what he was hoping to find. She wasn't in American Warriors or Bodybuilding Week. But when he opened Feminine Physique, there she was.

  Kent barely recognized her. She looked tanned to the point where her bikini-clad body was dark brown, glistening with oil in the lights. Her smile glowed in the midst of her darkened face as she held up a massive trophy.

  Kent read the caption: "Sonya Hawke, Three-Time Ms. Olympiad, Poses With Her Fourth Win In A Row."

  There she was. Sonya Hawke, a four-time Ms. Olympia champion. Kent read the accompanying article that was an interview with her. It wasn't very helpful. It mainly discussed her exercise program and dieting tips. At one point, the interviewer asked what she missed most while training, and she said "Pepperoni Pizza."

  There was nothing on where she lived or how she got involved with Pluto and the CLF. Without that information, he was right back where he started. But it was something. He knew who she was, as well as her full name.

  Kent stared out at the desert scenery that was blurred as it rushed past the window. He tried to remember everything she had said to him that night. She had seemed irritated because of her assignment to follow and kill Kent. That meant she was probably working for the CLF, but didn't share their ideals.

  Kent remembered her T-shirt. Sonya had been wearing a Golden Gym T-shirt. It wasn't much to go on, but it did narrow things down to one location he could check. It was a start.

  Kent watched the sun climb into the noon sky. He couldn't help wondering about Janet's fate. Had she escaped Sonya and was in hiding? Or had Sonya caught up to her? If so, was Janet alive or dead? He tried to think positively, but knew she was most likely dead.

  That drove a knife of grief into his heart that caused his chest to tighten. Everyone in Kent's life was either injured or dead now. Besides that, Janet had meant a lot to him. Maybe more than he had wanted to admit. He had grown closer to her over the years, but the last few days had forged a bond between them. He knew that bond had evolved into something more. If Janet was dead, then that was all over now. And it was all because of Pluto and his gang. Kent was going to make them pay.

  Kent felt the USB drive in his coat pocket with Troy's Cerberus virus. Thankfully, it had survived the fire. Without Janet, he couldn't understand it, but thought it might still come in handy as evidence if he needed it.

  Unlike the regular Cerberus virus, it activated itself immediately once the program was run, making it extremely dangerous. Anyone who tried the game was as good as dead. The knowledge that he carried such a deadly weapon in his pocket, and that such a weapon ran loose on computers all over the world, horrified him.

  Kent settled into the bus seat, listening to the leather creaking beneath him. The dangers he was facing were unlike anything he had ever experienced. He felt confused and afraid, longing to talk to someone. What he especially longed for was seeing Janet's reassuring smile and voice again, one last time.

  As Kent's eyes fluttered closed, he found himself making a final connection in his mind. He realized that Janet was more than a friend to him now. He loved her.

  He fell asleep.

  * * *

  He slept for most of the trip to Los Angeles, but it was a light, troubled sleep filled with nightmarish visions of three-headed dogs and flickering colors. When the Greyhound bus pulled into the station, Kent was already holding his backpack and rising from his seat. The nap he had taken only reminded him of how exhausted he really was, and how much his body still ached from the night before. Kent forced himself to keep going. He made his way off the bus, through the hordes of people, out of the bus station.

  It was raining outside. It was also fairly cool, Kent guessed in the low sixties. The light, slightly humid air was a welcome change from the sweltering heat of Phoenix.

  Unfortunately, Kent hadn't brought an umbrella or raincoat. He ducked under the awning of a nearby grocery store, which thankfully extended to cover an old payphone. Kent found a Yellow Pages hanging from it and flipped it open to the "Gyms" section. The list was huge, but he managed to find one for the Golden Gym and Health Spa, which claimed that it was the largest spa in California.

  Kent copied the address onto his hand, then made his way to the curb to flag down a passing taxicab. He told the driver the address, then found himself whisked through the palm tree-lined streets of downtown Los Angeles.

  He ended up being dropped off at a nearby beach, where he was shocked to discover the cost of cab fare. After paying the cabbie, Kent resolved to rent a car as quickly as possible. It would be cheaper in the long run

  The rain had stopped, giving way to the sun, which gave the beach a stereotypically Californian appearance. A crisp salty tang was in the air as Kent walked into what seemed like an outdoor circus. Along the boardwalk, Kent passed jugglers armed with chainsaws, rappers, street vendors selling dazzling arrays of sunglasses and T-shirts, and bikini-clad roller skaters blissfully making their way down the strip. He finally reached a corner of the Beach, filled with bare-chested jocks lifting weights. Across the street was the Golden Gym and Health Spa.

  Kent wasn't familiar enough with gyms to tell whether it was the biggest in California, but it certainly looked like it. The building looked like a miniature Taj Mahal with revolving doors in the archway.

  Kent walked through them into a massive lobby. Men and women in exercise gear strolled from one room to another. The clank of weights emerged from one chamber, while the splashing of a pool came from another.

  Kent approached a large circular desk, behind which sat more blondes than he had ever seen in his life. They all wore gold-colored t-shirts and shorts, and scribbled on charts and clipboards.

  One of the men behind the desk smiled at Kent. "Good afternoon, sir. What can I do for you? I should mention that we're offering a new service to our customers, 'Aromatherapy Escape,' which consists of a full-body herbal massage and wrap."

  "Uh, no thanks," Kent said. "I'm actually looking for someone."

  The man's smile dropped by a fraction of an inch. "Certainly, sir. Name?"

  "Sonya Hawke." Kent pulled out the photo of her from the magazine.

  The man studied the picture briefly, and nodded and handed the magazine back. "Yes, of course. She's one of our best customers."

  "Is she here? I'd like to speak to her."

  "To answer your question, no, she isn't
here. Miss Hawke usually works out late in the afternoon, around five o'clock, but we haven't seen her around for the past week or so. She might be busy at work."

  "Work?"

  "Yes," the man said, raising a clipboard, "she works at the Vulcan Corporation."

  "The Vulcan Corporation."

  "That's right. From what I understand, she's Roland Weaver's personal bodyguard and chauffeur. Don't ask me why he needs one. The guy rarely leaves the Vulcan compound. But she's been gone for days, so he must have gone on a trip or something. If he's back, Miss Hawke'll be here, rain or shine. She's training for the Ms. Olympia competition next month. If you like, I can give her a message when she comes in."

  Kent held up a hand. "No, it's fine. I'll try to catch her later. Uh, I'd appreciate if you didn't let her know I was here. I'm an old friend, and I'm planning to surprise her."

  The man grinned and winked at Kent. "Gotcha. Good luck."

  "Thanks."

  Kent walked out of the spa, feeling something descend over him like a cloud. Eventually, he realized it was understanding. The pieces were fitting together. The Vulcan Corporation, one of the largest computer software and hardware firms in the world, right under Microsoft. Computers. Programming.

  Cerberus.

  Kent found a juice bar nearby where he could sit down and think. Sipping a glass of guava-mango juice, Kent began to piece things together.

  The Cerberus virus was on a computer. It was programmed by what Janet considered to be a genius. The Vulcan Corporation worked with computers, and Roland Weaver was a genius. The Cyberspace Liberation Front had hired Sonya Hawke to kill Kent. Roland also employed Sonya Hawke as his personal bodyguard. The idea that Roland wasn't involved was too much to swallow, especially since he would have noticed she was gone. So Roland Weaver was involved in the Cerberus plot somehow.

  There was one other factor that made the Vulcan Corporation guilty. Kent remembered that Victor Morgan had worked on the Vulcan account at Gaines. He remembered Morgan telling him that Vulcan had offered him a job, but that Morgan had turned them down. Vulcan had been unusually upset at the rejection, so upset that they canceled their account with Gaines. That had been a topic for discussion around the office for a few days.

  Kent also remembered what Janet had said about the victims of Cerberus. Some of them worked in the computer industry for companies like Sunbird and Waveform. Both companies were competitors of the Vulcan Corporation.

  Kent also remembered reading the obituary of Cindy Diamond. It had mentioned that she had been engaged shortly before her death, but broke it off a week ago. She had been engaged to Roland Weaver.

  Roland Weaver and the Vulcan Corporation were connected to the Cerberus virus. But how? Had they created the virus? Did Roland know about it? If so, how was he involved? And most of all, why? Why would the owner of one of the world's largest companies want to kill millions of people, especially some of its potential customers?

  Kent wondered if the company itself was a front for the CLF.

  Herring had mentioned that the CLF had seven members. Maybe Roland was one of them, using his company to aid the cause. Either way, it made the Vulcan Corporation a prime target for his search.

  Kent took another cab, but only to a Hertz rental agency. He had decided that the convenience of driving a car outweighed the risk of using his credit cards. He knew that the police were watching his credit records to track him, and that the rental would show up, pointing them towards Los Angeles. His only hope was that by the time they managed to track him down, Kent would have located Pluto and the Cerberus anti-viral program.

  Kent also bought a book called Vulcan's Forge: The Making Of The Vulcan Corporation at a bookstore around the corner. He drove to a parking garage, where he spent a few minutes flipping through the book.

  It described Vulcan's atmospheric rise to glory. It detailed Vulcan's many successes, like the world's first affordable laptop computer, as well as its failures, like the Lightning operating system.

  The book described life in the Vulcan Compound, where programmers and engineers churned out products in a legendary atmosphere of creativity. It also had a chapter on Roland Weaver himself, but the biography was quite short and vague, giving only enough minor details to reinforce his image as an eccentric genius. The only useful fact it mentioned was that Roland had gone to Kachina High School as a boy, where he was mercilessly teased and shunned. There was another connection.

  In the back of the book, there was a map of Los Angeles with the Vulcan Complex's location in Westwood Village. It also described the heavy security surrounding it. Armed guards, thick walls, and guard dogs ensured that no one who wasn't on the Vulcan payroll could get in.

  Kent drove to the Vulcan Complex, anyway. After moving through the dazzling beauty of Bel Air, he passed into a village styled after Spanish colonialism. He drove down Wilshire Boulevard until he came to a large, stately park surrounded by a menacing concrete wall. At intervals, signs were posted that read "PRIVATE PROPERTY. NO TRESPASSING." Barbed wire ringed the top of the wall.

  Kent continued to drive until he came to a massive iron gate. Signs marked with lightning bolts stated that the gate was electrified. Kent drove past it, glancing over to get a glimpse of the interior of the compound.

  It looked enormous, but also had a strangely tranquil quality. Through the barred gate, he could see people throwing Frisbees, playing music, and just lying on the grass relaxing. It was as if they were in a national park, rather than one of the most powerful companies in the world. But the guarded posts on both sides of the gate helped to dispel that illusion.

  Kent could also see the complex itself in the distance as a fantastic architectural wonder. The "Y" shape wasn't as clear from the ground, but it was still impressive. At the very top, Kent could make out a tiny bubble of glass that was the roof of Roland's penthouse. The book had mentioned that Roland lived in a penthouse in his company's headquarters and rarely left.

  Kent knew he would have to get in to see Roland, but he wasn't clear on how. He had a vague plan, one that involved the bottle of chloroform Taylor had given him, but it was a dangerous plan as well. Kent had to admit that the plan was likely to get him killed, but he had no choice. He had to find out what had happened to Janet, save her if she was still alive, find Pluto and punish him if she wasn't, and stop Cerberus from wiping out millions of people.

  Kent had a few hours before Sonya was due to arrive at the Golden Gym, so he stopped at a hot dog stand for a quick meal. He ordered a chili dog with everything on it, along with a cherry Coke. As he ate at an outdoor table, he felt like he was cramming cholesterol into his arteries, but at this point in his life, his health was the least of his worries.

  Kent also had some time to think about Roland Weaver. He was now convinced that Roland was Pluto, which amazed him. He had always thought of virus-hackers as wimpy kids in dank basements wrecking computers for cheap thrills. But this wimpy kid had grown up into a billionaire.

  Kent's thoughts returned to the Cyberspace Liberation Front. From what Herring had told him, the CLF seemed like an organization basically opposed to the general public using the Internet. Seven people from all over the world who had never met joined together for a common goal. They had to be powerful in order to create and guard a secret as big as Cerberus.

  The CLF seemed to consider the online world of computers their own private playground, one others weren't welcome to, and one they would to kill to preserve.

  He took another bite of his hotdog. It was cyber-terrorism. The CLF was trying to scare people out of the Internet. The idea of a lethal computer virus which roamed the Internet, killing anyone who encountered it, seemed strong enough to stop the current boom of computer users. The majority of the public already feared computers, suffering from what psychologists called "technophobia," a fear of technology. Cerberus could very well push them over the edge.

  Then again, Kent wondered if Herring had been telling the truth. Perhaps there w
as no CLF. Maybe Herring had lied. Maybe he was the only member. Maybe he had been Pluto. Interesting thought, but Kent found it hard to believe, especially since Sonya had attacked and probably killed Herring. There had to be someone more powerful behind Herring, and the CLF seemed a likely choice.

  Roland Weaver and the Vulcan Corporation had to be the key to it all.

  Kent finished his meal, and took a walk along Venice Beach to consider what he planned to do. He was getting nervous. The scope of what he had become was overwhelming to him. He was hurt, he was tired, and he was desperate. He had lost his two best friends, possibly a third, and almost lost his son. It was like his life was cursed, and the name of the curse was Cerberus.

  But Kent was through feeling sorry for himself. Janet was right. He had spent so many years in self-imposed exile while ignoring how much there was in his life to enjoy. Now, when he had everything in the world to feel miserable about, Kent found himself strangely energized. For the first time in a long time, Kent felt as if he had a purpose. He could make a difference.

  He walked off the beach at four o'clock to roam the shops on the boardwalk. He was able to purchase some clothes with the last of his funds. He bought a dark blue t-shirt and slacks, a light jacket, sunglasses, and a floppy hat. After ducking into a men's room to change, Kent walked back to the Golden Gym, where he took up a position across the street. There, leaning against a lamppost, Kent began to wait.

  At exactly five o'clock, Kent spotted Sonya Hawke among the crowds. She wore a T-shirt and shorts that barely fit her powerful frame. She moved swiftly on in-line skates, weaving past men and women who stared in amazement as she flashed by. Sonya ignored them, finally rolling to a halt in front of the Golden Gym. She unlaced her skates, tucked them into the duffel bag on her shoulder, and walked into the gym.

  Kent waited a few minutes to make sure she wasn't coming out again, then hurried around the building to one of the many plate-glass windows that showed the interior of the gym. Through one of them, Kent could see into the weight room. It wasn't long before Sonya walked in wearing a leotard and sweatband. She flexed her bare arms as she approached one of the barbells, then began stacking weights onto it.