Chapter 10

‘And goodbye to you too,’ Laura muttered at the blank DPad screen. She removed the communication device from the back of her DPad and placed both items behind a removable panel in the wall. She gave the disused room on Level Two one final check to make sure she hadn’t disturbed anything and opened the door a crack. Spotting a roving camera patrolling the large open space at the far end of the corridor, she waited for it to disappear before she left.

She crept along the unpatrolled corridor and at the end, peeked around the corner. A distinct hum told her the camera was close by. When the hum reduced in volume, she darted across the open space and through a door opposite that led into the Energy Creation rooms. She found a free cubicle, undressed and changed into her exercise gear. Then she jumped on one of the treadmills.

Once she was hooked up to the machine and jogging along a wooded path somewhere in France, Laura gave more thought to the trip to Exilon 5. She felt excited to be going to the planet—it had been her ambition for as long as she could remember—but she worried that her enthusiasm might be clouding her judgement about the risks involved in attaining her goal in such an ‘unofficial’ way. And she wasn’t sure she could trust Bill’s judgement either: in the short time she had known him, she had seen him be impulsive—and more than a little impatient. Yet surely he wouldn’t have suggested they made the trip unless he was confident they could pull it off.

The visit to Exilon 5 would only be temporary, but she didn’t care. The huge doses of Vitamin D and Actigen she had to take on Earth were doing nothing for her melancholy; she craved the sweet, unfiltered air and the natural sunlight of the new planet. Today, just the thought of travelling to Exilon 5 was making her naturally euphoric, but before she could go, there were a couple of things she needed to sort out.

Back at her workstation a short time later, Laura concentrated on sourcing a pilot to take them to the passenger ship. Ideally, the pilot would have to be someone with a grudge against the World Government—a conscientious employee would never risk their career to help out a couple of strangers and do something illegal—yet they needed to be familiar with protocols and know the right channels to access. They also needed to have their own spacecraft and be willing to deliver Bill and Laura to the passenger ship without questioning their motives.

Laura had already developed a relationship with someone who could possibly help with the search. Six weeks ago, she had discovered a teenage boy wandering the halls of the ESC alone and curiosity had got the better of her. He was young—too young for this place—so she stopped to ask him who he was and what he was doing there. His name was Callum Preston, he told her, he was the son of a Level Two employee, and he was attending an ESC training programme designed especially for teenagers and run by Daphne Gilchrist. When Gilchrist appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and failed to comment on a young boy talking to a Level Five employee, Laura sensed there was something special about Callum Preston. Her uncharacteristic behaviour made more sense when Laura found out that the teenager had signed himself up for an advanced aptitude test and delivered a perfect score. The genius kid had something Gilchrist wanted.

Callum had worn a grey ESC uniform that was too big for his tall, gangly frame. He showed an obvious interest in Laura’s Level Five status when he rattled off a string of questions about her job, and over time, they had become friendly on the occasions when they bumped into each other. She had discovered that Callum was a computer genius—that he could see inside the programming, ‘read the zeros and ones’, as he put it—and that he had a healthy disregard for Daphne Gilchrist: ‘That old battleaxe?’ he’d said. ‘She thinks the sun shines out of my arse.’

Now, after her conversation with Bill, Laura had a need for Callum’s skills and deliberately sought him out that morning. Cornering him in an area of the ESC building where the roving cameras were light, she kept their conversation brief.

‘Do you know where the empty rooms on Level Two are?’ she asked him.

‘I think so. Corridor F?’

Laura nodded. ‘Meet me there in an hour. I’ve a mission for you that I think you’ll like.’

An hour later, Laura headed for the Energy Creation Room on Level Two. She changed into her running gear, slipped out the frosted-glass back door into the open area and ran across to the corridor, listening out for the roving cameras. She kept her eyes to the ground and headed towards the disused room from where she had previously called Bill. At first, she hadn’t noticed that Callum was waiting for her outside.

‘You didn’t say which room,’ he mumbled as he stuffed a giant replicated chocolate muffin into his mouth.

Laura’s eyes widened as she pushed him through the second door from the end, closed it and turned to look at him. She kept a hand on his bony chest. ‘Did anyone see you?’

Callum shook his head.

‘Please be more careful. We’re not supposed to be here.’ She removed her hand. ‘What access have the ESC given you for your training programme?’

Callum spoke with his mouth full: ‘I can see Level One information. Very basic stuff. Not very interesting. But when they aren’t looking, I hack Level Two for something else to do.’

Laura raised a single brow. ‘Do they know you’re doing that?’

He swallowed the last of the muffin and shook his head. ‘I mask my trail. Only others who know how to do what I do would even bother checking the activity.’ He wiped a few crumbs from his mouth.

‘What about the sentient programmes? Are they not monitoring your activity?’

Callum rolled his eyes. ‘The problem is everybody relies on the programmes to tell them things. So here’s the thing—fool the programmes and you can do what the hell you want.’

‘Anything?’ Laura said quietly. ‘How does that work?’

‘Well, I show them what I want them to see and then I do something else entirely. Even though they’re intelligent, they still operate within parameters. They’re restricted by their base code. Manipulate that and you can pretty much run the entire system. It’s complicated though, and the sentients sometime figure out what you’re trying to do before you’ve got full access.’

‘Is this all theory or have you tried it already?’

‘I’ve done it on the Light Box at home. I programmed an avatar with complex emotions and tried to see if I could fool its programme.’

‘And did you?’ Laura said, her eyes wide with interest.

‘Almost. It caught me on the last pass. I had to make up some excuse that I was running diagnostics or something. The sentient learns each time you make a mistake. It becomes sharper. If you admit you’re trying to fool it, it’ll watch everything you do like a hawk. So you have to learn not to make any mistakes.’

‘Okay, I need you to listen to me’—she grabbed hold of Callum’s sleeve—‘and this conversation is strictly between us.’

Callum nodded.

Laura let go of his sleeve. ‘I need you to do a couple of things for me. Are you up for it?’

Callum nodded again, then swallowed hard.

‘The first thing is to check the World Government employee list. I’m looking for a pilot to go on a special trip, so preferably someone who is up for some undercover work. Look for issues on their employment record—dismissals, rogue behaviour—that kind of stuff. Can you do that?’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Shit, for a minute I thought you were going to give me a challenge. When do you want it?’

‘As soon as you can. Could you fit it in tomorrow during your morning training session? Then we could meet again here at three in the afternoon.’

‘Shouldn’t be a problem,’ said Callum cockily. ‘Sounds easy enough.’

Laura gave him a stern look. ‘Please Callum. What you’re about to do is extremely dangerous—life and death. Don’t ever forget that.’

Callum’s mouth tightened as the seriousness of the situation hit him. Laura smiled inwardly—if he was scared, it would increase his chances of survival. She didn’t bother to reassure him.

‘We’d better leave separately,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t want us to be seen together for the rest of today. See you tomorrow at three—and good luck.’ It surprised her how easily she had learned to be devious.