Free Cyberdrome by Joseph Rhea, David Rhea

when he saw Leconte’s face gazing up at him from Maya’s desktop
screen. “God, you startled me,” he said. He then remembered the time and added;
“The interface was two hours ago. Why didn’t someone come get me?”
    “I take
responsibility for that,” she said. “You looked so tired and we were all busy
preparing for the mission. May I ask why it took so long to finish your Swarm?”
    It took him a
second to realize that she had changed the subject. “Why? Was there a problem?”
    “No, I’m just
curious why it took you so long. I thought that you could write a Swarm program
in your sleep.”
    He remembered
saying that to Maya in private. Had Leconte been eavesdropping on them, or had
Maya simply told her? Maybe it didn’t matter.
    “The Swarm
itself wasn’t the problem,” he said. “Breaking something up into a million
pieces is easy. Putting all of those pieces back together again in the correct
order is the hard part.”
    “You’re talking
about the Queen program?”
    “That’s right.
Can I assume that it worked?”
    “Perfectly,” she
said. “We are over two hours into the mission, and so far, everything’s proceeding
as planned.”
    He thought about
what Maya had told him and realized that for her, as well as the other members
of the mission team, over 200 hours had already passed—more than eight full
days and nights. For all he knew, they were nearly finished with their objectives.
Then, his earlier thoughts came back to him. “I have a question,” he said.
    Leconte’s face
disappeared from the desktop and reappeared on the wall screen in front of
Maya’s desk. “That’s a better angle for me,” she said. “Please continue.”
    “What are you
doing here that you don’t want anyone else to know about?”
    He noticed a
slight, but perceptible hesitation before she answered. “All companies have
trade secrets,” she said. “Surely you know that, considering your line of work.”
    “This facility
is completely cut off from any of the Global Networks,” he said, “including
satellite-based, which tells me that your secrets run deeper than most. I also
noticed that your system security’s no better than industry-standard, which
completely threw me at first. However, then I remembered an old Plumber’s rule,
which states that the best place to hide the combination to the safe is inside
the safe.”
    “What on Earth
does that mean?”
    “It means that
none of your important data structures are stored on your servers. You’re running
everything on virtual computers—systems inside systems—probably from within
your simulations. I think it’s safe to say that you’re doing something so
illegal here that you’re willing to lose everything to avoid getting caught.”
    “I think it’s
time for you to leave now,” she said, all politeness gone from her voice.
    Alek ignored her
and continued. “So, what could it be? The fact that my father’s neuroprobes
won’t leave your people was the first clue. You can’t reprogram nano-scale
robots once they are built, and a construction error couldn’t be so specific or
so widespread. That tells me that you designed your probes to ignore a recall
command under certain conditions. The only reason I can think of for keeping
people interfaced against their will would be if something inside your simulations
infected them. That way you would have physical control over who, or what, you
allowed out.”
    “I’ll have your
payment deposited in your account by the time you get back to your apartment,”
Leconte said, acting as though she had not heard him.
    “The second clue
I didn’t get until just a few minutes ago, and it involves your Fluidal
Computer. The only reason I can think of for using something as unstable as
DNA-based memory, is that you actually want a system that will collapse
if someone inside tries to break the rules you have programmed into it.”
    Leconte pressed
something off camera, and the door to Maya’s office