Nigel could feel Aiko’s gaze upon him as he disassembled the code embedded into the flash drive he had stolen from the windowless building. Every time someone entered the tent, anxiety surged into him like a geyser. It almost paralyzed him, but he held it back. The music that blared from his headphones was like a lit path that guided his soul to what he hoped would be the path to freedom and righteousness.
“Find anything?” Aiko asked, lifting his headphones.
Nigel shook his head.
“You’ve been at this for hours. You must have found something.”
“I found something about a watchtower project. It’s cryptic, even for me. But I’ve found nothing that leads us to Doc Chop.”
“Wait, tell me what you can about this watchtower.”
Nigel pulled up the files and scanned through them once more. Unfortunately, the documents read like instructions to a refrigerator; highly technical, but not very conclusive. Then he saw it. Specifications that detailed an operations center. Something with multiple subterranean levels was connected to a gigantic antenna. Nigel searched for additional clues as to its location, but came up short.
“Any ideas where this antenna is located?” Aiko asked.
“Usually they’re installed on mountaintops for the best signal. I bet my friend Milo knows. Do I have your permission to call him?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Keep searching.”
Nigel banged his head against a virtual wall for hours. He switched his editor to his hex view. He always focused better on his developer interface. Even then, he couldn’t find a pattern. But one word was repeated in a cluster with a single number in the center. He discovered an encrypted blob and started a decryption routine, which he moved to a background processing job. He kept a virtualized container for parallel processing, then resumed working on the numbers.
It could take forever to brute force this, but what if I…
Nigel couldn’t readily identify the pattern, but if he could write a script to help with the manual work, he could come up with a solution much faster. He brought up another programming interface in his toolkit and set the stage for his next hacking attempt. A crude computer art drawing of a snake appeared on the screen. Although his computer was capable of rendering graphics, the drawing was assembled out of standard interchangeable keyboard characters. Nigel always enjoyed how creative developers got with creating pictures from regular symbols found on any keyboard. Moments later he received a message that read: PSnake version 3.7, creative commons license attached. PSnake was a popular programming language used by millions of programmers around the world that allowed hackers to customize their environments or, with enough work, create their own. Nigel started his session by refining a response check inside the main module. He received a response okay code back. He then ran a match check and invoked a case statement so he would know if he received an ambiguous result. This would make verifying any numbers received from his decryption process much easier. His breath caught as he ran his newly created algorithm for the first time. He gasped as he reviewed the output.
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“I know where he is, or will be,” Nigel blurted.
“Where?”
He loaded the numbers into a mapping program and gasped. “It appears that Professor Paladin has an interest in Plymouth Rock.”
Aiko gave him a look that described how he felt—alone and confused. He double-checked the numbers. They were coordinates: the latitude and longitude pointed to an area just west of the historic site. He noticed several radio towers on the map with line of sight to that location. When he tried to access more information from the stored data packet, he received an error. It was encrypted, and his decryption algorithm wasn’t close to being done.
“Unless I’m missing something, I don’t think there’s anything there,” Aiko finally said.
“It’s got something to do with the radio towers in the area. According to my radio signals map, they’re pointed to the ocean—it might be too early to tell, but I think I found references to a control center.”
A siren blared throughout the city. It was so loud Nigel had to cover his ears. Moments later, it stopped and more disturbing sounds echoed from nearby buildings. Guttural chants of nonsensical gibberish followed by screams penetrated the tent. Aiko grabbed her sword and disappeared into the fray. Nigel shoved everything into his backpack and hurried out close behind Aiko. His weapon was taken by Aiko’s guards. He felt naked without the cool grip of metal between his fingers. Outside the tent was pandemonium. Doc Chop’s infected were everywhere. Nigel found it difficult to believe that these mindless killers were people trying to survive in a crazy world. But now their only purpose was to serve their unforgiving master. Nigel wondered if he could remove any of their controlling cybernetics. He didn’t think that was possible, as they were dependant on the green gas to keep them alive. Nigel had recently discovered that there was a link and codependency between the green gas and the circuitry in their head. If any of the cyborgs attempted to remove the circuitry, a massive power surge would stimulate the amygdala, causing the cyborg to forget all about what they were doing in the first place.
“There’s too many of them,” Nigel said.
“We’re outnumbered ten to one. It might be a good time to activate your harem, Nigel.”
“Harem!?!”
Aiko gave him an incredulous look. “I see how they all look at you. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say they’re in love. So, have you gotten them all into bed together at the same time yet?”
“What—”
Nigel couldn’t finish his sentence. A cyborg who appeared to be half beast with a horn atop its head charged.
“Ding doing bally bop,” it said as it charged like a wild animal.
Nigel dodged, but not fast enough. The horn grazed his shoulder. Warm blood oozed from the wound. Aiko dispatched the creature with one blow.
“Find a weapon and free your women.”
Nigel ran toward the impromptu jail that he and his female companions had called home for the past week or so. Try as he might, he could not find a weapon. He ran past dozens of crazed cyborgs who didn’t pay him any attention. Most were fighting Aiko’s guard or others in the encampment. Some were fighting over who should attack the innocent. Two cyborgs, about thirteen years old, rode a gigantic beast with more wires than Nigel thought was possible on a creature that size. The teens shot at women and children with homemade slingshots. Most of the projectiles missed, but some screamed as they got hit. A section of nylon rope caught Nigel’s eye. One section was tied to a post. Clothes were fastened to it like a fallen improvised clothes line. Nigel grabbed a section and pulled as the horned beast with the brats rode by. The teens screamed as they were catapulted into the air. The beast stumbled and landed on one of the slingers. One of the boys screamed for a brief second before the girth of the beast silenced him for good.
Serves them right!
Nigel’s heart sank as he approached the jail. His companions were gone.