Free Code Zero by Jonathan Maberry Page B

as it turned out, Caleb would come to remember that young woman for the rest of his life. She would visit him in his dreams, though when that happened there were no eyes behind the dark lenses of the shades, but actual fire. The heat of that fire became so intense that it would chase him from sleep into a trembling wakefulness, and he would sit up in bed, drenched with sweat, listening to the desperate pounding of his heart.
    At the moment, as he looked around the cyber café, he did not see her and did not think about her.
    Until he had no choice.
    At precisely 6:30 that morning her face appeared on every screen in the café. Even on the personal laptops of customers who came in for the wi-fi access. Caleb was bent over the counter running a debit card, heard the chorus of grunts and questions.
    He looked up and saw the face on the monitors.
    A girl with dark glasses and an anime T-shirt. Caleb thought he recognized the Betty Page haircut, but her presence on the screen did not immediately connect with a customer who had been in the store.
    The girl smiled placidly but said nothing. It wasn’t a static image, because at one point she sipped from a can of Red Bull.
    “Yo!” growled one customer as he pounded at his keyboard in a vain attempt to break the connection. “What the hell?”
    “Hold on, guys,” said Caleb loud enough for everyone to hear. “Must be a server error. I apologize for the delay, let me see what I can do.”
    Caleb pulled his laptop closer and tapped some keys, checking the router status, running a diagnostic, doing the routine things that should have fixed this in seconds. The image remained in place. The Korean girl took another sip of Red Bull.
    “Okay,” Caleb announced, “I’m going to have to reboot the router. Everybody should be back online in a couple of seconds.”
    “I’m not paying to sit here and stare at some Japanese chick,” groused the man who’d yelled earlier.
    She’s Korean, jackass , thought Caleb, but he didn’t see any value in saying that out loud. “Gimme a sec.”
    He unplugged the router from cable and power sources.
    Every screen in the café flickered to black for one second, and then the Korean girl was back.
    Caleb stared at the dozen-plus copies of her face scattered throughout the room. He looked at his own laptop. With the plugs pulled all that he should be seeing was a no-connection screen.
    The Korean girl smiled.
    Caleb said, “What?”
    He tried several other things. The image of the girl blipped and for a moment Caleb thought he’d solved it, but when the girl sipped the Red Bull in exactly the same way as before he realized that this was a video loop. That was weird. If the computers weren’t connected to the Net and yet were showing the girl, then that meant there was some kind of video file planted on each machine. Even computers belonging to customers who came in after that girl left the store. Was that possible?
    Yeah. And if it was true it could be real trouble for the café.
    That girl could have uploaded a Trojan horse to all of the rental computers here at the Surf Shop, and anyone logging on through the router was probably receiving it when they agreed to the terms on the café’s homepage.
    Shit.
    The customers were mad now. Several were badgering him about getting things fixed. The loudmouth was saying that they should all get their money back.
    Caleb quickly restarted his MacBook Pro. He entered his password and for a moment he saw his usual desktop display.
    And then the image of the Korean girl reappeared.
    “What the hell are you doing over there?” demanded the loud customer.
    Caleb shook his head. “I—I’m having a little trouble with … Um. Hold on, let me try something else.”
    He plugged the router in and waited as it ran through its opening diagnostic.
    “Hey,” said a woman seated by the window. She held up her iPhone. “It’s not just us. It’s on the news.”
    Everyone scrambled for their cells. Caleb