Immune (The Rho Agenda #2)(52)

"I also tell you this because I need you, and I believe you need the services that only I can provide. I am sure you are aware of my capabilities for penetrating secure networks, using other technologies at my disposal. You are, no doubt, cut off from your traditional lines of support and communication. Let me be that line. All you have to do to contact me is to replace the text in this file with your answer. I will be monitoring. Think it over."

"What do you make of that?" Jack said, turning toward Janet.

"I think we need to open up the back of the computer and take a look at that chip. For all we know it might give away our location."

"Oh, we're going to do that, but I don't think we're in much danger of them finding us. If they could do that we would have already had some unwelcome visitors."

Janet closed the screen and flipped the laptop upside down. Extracting a small tool from the case, she removed the cover. Sure enough, there it was, a small chip glued directly atop the CPU.

"Well, that much of the message is true."

Jack nodded. "I have a feeling that most of it is true, although we can bet that this source has its own agenda."

Janet bent closer to the laptop. "I can't see any direct connections to the circuitry. The chip just looks like it was attached with superglue. The connection must be some sort of induction circuit."

"That doesn't seem possible using a chip of that size."

"If we buy the quantum twin thing, then maybe it is possible."

"You've got a point there." Jack grinned.

Janet turned her attention back to the exposed circuit board. "So what do you want to do? Do we deep six the whole laptop? It may have been tampered with in ways that aren't this obvious."

Jack paused. "The laptop doesn't have any external connections, so the technology being used to communicate matches what the message said. Before we do anything else, I want to find out just how useful our new friend can be."

"How so?"

"Slap the cover back on that thing. We're going to ask our source for a good faith deposit."





50


"How was the doctor visit?" Mark asked as Heather stepped through the door.

Heather frowned. "Nothing happened."

"What do you mean nothing happened?"

"I mean the doctor didn't even examine me. He talked to Mom and Dad for a bit and then asked me a few questions. Then he referred me to another doctor."

"Another doctor?"

"Yeah, a shrink. Can you believe it? I have an appointment with her tomorrow."

Mark looked at Heather. As much as she tried to make herself sound casual, she looked angry and embarrassed.

Before he could ask her another question, she turned away. "Where's Jen?"

"She went to the mall with Mom. They'll be gone all day. Dad's at work; that just leaves the two of us."

"Any response on the message we sent Jack?"

"I don't know. I just left the system running the automatic resend program that Jennifer wrote. If he or Janet turns the computer on, they'll get our message."

"Let's check. And no, I don't want to talk about the doctor."

"I wasn't asking."

"Good," Heather said, heading for the stairs. "Let's go see if we got a response."

As Mark followed Heather into his sister's room, he paused at the doorway. He couldn't quite place it, but something didn't feel right. As different as they had always been, Mark knew his twin like no non-twin could. And something about her room was different. However, a quick look over the room didn’t reveal what was off, and Heather was waiting. He'd figure it out later.

He followed Heather over to the small desk where Jennifer's laptop sat quietly running. Heather typed in the password and the security screen was replaced by a view of the computer desktop.

Two programs were running, both minimized and out of view. Heather brought up the communication program that linked the QT on Jennifer's laptop to the one on Janet's laptop.

Heather almost jumped out of her seat. "Oh my God! They got our message and sent a response."

Immediately, all thoughts about Jennifer vanished from Mark's mind as he leaned over Heather's shoulder to read the message.

"All right. You know who I am, but I need more than your word that I can trust you. Prove it to me. Get me the name of the person who led the attack on my team. Nothing less will be acceptable. I'll give you a week to get back to me with the answer before I destroy this computer. Any attempt at contact without that answer and I will destroy the computer. You have my terms."

Mark was stunned. A glance at Heather's face confirmed that he wasn't alone.

"So Jack is alive," Mark breathed.

"Maybe so, but we can't give him what he wants."

Mark raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"

Heather swiveled the chair to face him. "Well, for one thing, we don't know the answer. Second, we can't hack our way into any network that might have the answer because we don't have the cold fusion tank anymore. Even though we kept the subspace transmitter, we don't have any way of generating the gamma flux it needs."

"Well we're just going to have to come up with some other way of making the subspace transmitter work."