CHAPTER 19 — COMPROMISED

EARTH – WEEK 2 DAY 4

GIBBS RESIDENCY

It's a pretty sad state of affairs for Dr. Gibbs, especially bearing the insults and abuses from the younger generation. Never was he, whether in his workspace or his neighborhood, been this much humiliated and thrown around like a rag doll, house arrested and made to work round the clock just that some random person, who turned out to be Dillinger's successor, could play the boss game with him. The same boss game by Sr. made him quit his passion three decades ago for creating digitized objects and 3d models, and now the same game is played with him by Jr. Even Walter couldn't bring himself up to laugh at the irony being played on his life. Nevertheless, he has no other choice whatsoever than to do whatever the kid says. Thinking so, he worked on improving MCP 2.0, adding new layers and modifications until another Connection emerges from the Grid.

Bringing his wait to an end, his Connections Tab rang again with another connection from the Grid, although the recipient from the other side is unknown yet. This time the connection lasted a little bit longer, buying time for Walter to hack into the advanced mainframe of the Grid. After a toe-to-toe fight with the Gateway tool in the first layer, Walter's cyber worms managed to creep into the Grid. Within a few seconds, his monitor displayed the coordinates of the recipient, but it was like Greek and Latin even to the seasoned hacker and co-founder of ENCOM. Not willing to risk all his effort solely into the bizzare, random worded coordinates, he then relayed command to his worms, which then toured the whole Grid from the exact coordinate location. Their instructions were to map the whole Grid, covering everything from the minor detailing to the major landmarks. These worms continued their exploration even after the Connection ended, which is when Gibbs called Ed through the guards. Briefing about the coordinates he'd obtained, he also reminded Ed that he could grab only one User's coordinates as they were in cyberspace and that the Grid's mainframe resembled that of the earlier MCP programming. Hacking is not his forte in the professional sense and he advised Dillinger to search for any RedHat hacker for this job. After a few seconds of silence, Ed continued:

- When will the map be ready?

- Blueprint? May take a day or so.

- Can we enter inside this…. what's the name again? Grid?

- I can't guarantee, son. But we used to have old digitizers back then, but that's only for 3d objects.

- Digitizer?

- It's a laser printing machine for digitizing 3d shaped objects into digital copies and vice versa.

- Kinda like teleportation inside the computer.

- Almost yes. But that won't be of any use for humans, son.

- We'll see that. Now, you'll open the portal for me, will ya?

- It's impossible at this stage, boy. Even if I tampered with the process, it's still very dangerous.

- You want to enjoy your retirement, Doc? Be on that portal thing right away.

- (gulping) Okay, boy. Just promise me you have my back if things go wrong, please?

- Done, you have it. When will the portal be ready?

- Have patience, boy. May take a few days or weeks altogether. If you can get me the old digitizers inside ENCOM, it'll be easier for me.

- You'll get them by tomorrow. I don't have weeks to wait. Give the phone to my boys.

THE GRID–SECOND TRONCYCLE

MARA'S CABIN

Post the debacle inside her cabin caused by Zed, Mara became upset and took some rest inside her room. The ruckus she got rolled in left her with mixed feelings and an unstable mind. She took a nap immediately and her eyes couldn't care about whatever happened during her absence inside the room. A nap of 8mTC after the decimal point comforted her mind and woke her up to the home she belongs to and the work waiting for her. Delving deeper into her work in front of her supercomputer, she couldn't believe what the computer had in store for her. The virtual machine has been logged in and tampered with already. Her personal computer, the only one existing in the garage and also the only thing untouched ever in the garage, has been spoiled by a bad touch, one that is not hers.

With trembling hands and a frantic mind, Mara browsed through all the files, folders, and directories inside she could get her hands on and all of them were left open. Clueless and nervous, Mara picked up the Phantom Buds and made a call, not before setting up those routine jammers from her drawer. After filling in her codeword, she spouted the emergency phrase "CODE RED" to get connected immediately to the Renegade, an indication of the mission getting compromised. As expected, her call got connected instantly and she started her briefing on the matter:

- Someone logged into the system and extracted sensitive intel. No idea what they needed, all directories and files were left open. I have been compromised….

- (Interrupting) WHO HAS THE ACCESS INCLUDING YOU?

- No one. Only me. Never let anyone even touch it for fun.

- ANYONE ENTERED YOUR ROOM BEFORE?

- Just the guests, that's it.

- YOU HAVE YOUR ANSWER, NEVER USE CODE RED FOR SUCH PETTY CASES, EVER.

- No, it couldn't be them. I know them pretty close. Could've been someone else.

- THEN GIVE THE NAMES.

- No, I can't, I don't know.

- THEN DO WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE. MISSION FIRST, EMOTIONS NEXT.

- I can ask them for once, but being harsh on them? Not my cup of tea. I'm a mechanic, not a sentry, Renegade. If I act harshly, they may escape for real and definitely wouldn't believe me next time.

- THERE IS NO NEXT TIME, MARA. LEAVE ALONE YOUR GARAGE, THE WHOLE GRID WILL FALL INTO CHAOS JUST BECAUSE YOU COULDN'T DO YOUR JOB.

- I'll do my best. I don't think they could've got what they wanted, not in a shorter time I can say for sure.

- LET THE CULPRITS DECIDE ON THAT. IF YOU CAN'T MAKE IT, ZED WILL TAKE OVER.

- No, definitely not that boomer. I promise I'll recover the intel and the culprits sooner.

- GOOD. AND DON'T LET ANYONE OUT OF THE PLACE. I'LL BE THERE IN 200mTC.

- Yes, I'll handle everything until then.

- LASTLY, DO NOT HESITATE TO USE WEAPONS OR ANYTHING IN HAND FOR SELF-DEFENCE.

- Got it, Boss. Peace out.

ABLE'S GARAGE – GUEST ROOM

The partners in crime hastily made their way into the suite, running madly as if there is no tomorrow. It is the mercy of Mara's blind attachment that saved them. If Zed could be stopped by anyone rather than Beck and Able, it's Mara's single word of command. Closing the door behind them before gasping in relief Sam stuck his back on the door where Quorra sat through her anxiety on the couch. Sweating profusely, even their breath struggled to maintain its course of flow through the vigorously shaking bodies of Sam and Quorra. A few minutes of silence was enough to cool them down, albeit leaving bouts of doubts regarding their secrecy. Those minutes were enough to send the blueprint and all the information extracted from Mara's system to the other side, which gave them plenty of time to sleep into the bliss of ignorance.

A few mTC later, Roy made no delay in designing and laying out the all-new Grid Layout they all waited for. Applying all the mathematical formulae under his belt and lacing them with the cobweb of permutations and probabilities, Roy then contacted Sam, keeping the Results Tab beside the video call window for reference purposes:

- Kid. You didn't share our call details with anyone, did you?

- No Roy? What happened?

- Someone just crawled into the Grid from your ID, Sam. Are you sure you encrypted our call details?

- Yes obviously. It's routed purely through internal servers. Only you, Alan, and we both know about this.

- Any bad blood you have here?

- Many. Who can I point out exactly?

- We'll take care of that guy then. Does the owner know her map is with you?

- Don't bother about that, Roy. Any update on Dad's location?

- Yes. The resultant coordinates point out approximately 500km east of your location.

- Specifics, Roy. Which place it could be?

- Outlands. Map's not symmetrical, so the place could be somewhere deep inside it.

- This is bullshit. We barely even came out alive from there, and still couldn't see any cave or a man-made structure.

- Language, boy. The math says so, I have no say in it.

- (Calming inside) Thank you so much, Roy. Just please make sure Alan is safe over there. And ping me if you get any useful info.

- Sure thing, Sam. Don't expect any mercy from me if you people leave empty-handed from there.

- (Laughing) Better luck, Roy.

Disconnecting the call, Sam and Quorra turned to each other to have their discussion on this newly obtained information. Sam could leave no stone unturned in his mission whereas Quorra cautioned Sam on the unspecific coordinates they have obtained, partly due to the mishaps they've faced all along the way simply due to misplaced coordinates they had with them. "Sam, can't we wait until we get the proper coordinates or location? At least we can take help from Mara, right?"

"We didn't just take her Map, Quorra. We stole from her system. It won't take long before she sniffs us out."

"We came from Outlands, Sam! We didn't even know where we started and how we reached Argon outskirts. It's like searching for a particular pebble in a desert."

"That is way better than being imprisoned in this shed. Worse, we'll end up in the General's prison."

"(Sighing) Okay, fine, I agree. How will we get there? All the vehicles here are in repair."

"Did I tell you I was always on the run since twelve?"