My overwhelmed brain fixed on the blue letters glowing in my dark living room, but I had trouble translating them, understanding what they implied.
WE CONCUR GEMMA KEYES
STAND BY
SEARCHING
MESSAGE ORIGINATION
Then, like a line of falling dominoes, bits and pieces of evidence and observation fell into place and began to gel, to make sense. What had Dr. Bickel said?
“Alpha Tribe holds the nanocloud’s collective memories and learning,” he’d bragged.
While I stared at the screen, the truth synced. It clicked into place.
I understood.
The nanomites carried Dr. Bickel’s research! They were the “safe” place to which he’d uploaded his data!
My eyes returned to the nanomites’ three lines of text. The statements were simple; the inferences were huge. Immense! My hands remained frozen on the keyboard as I fumbled my way through the significance of the nanomites’ message: They were aware of what went on around them.
When I’d uttered the words, “We need to find Dr. Bickel and get him out,” they had heard me. More than that, they agreed with me—and they were already tracing Dr. Bickel’s email, attempting to pinpoint his location.
Dr. Bickel’s email!
Oh, Dr. Bickel! You are alive? Where are you, my sweet old friend? Can the nanomites uncover your location? Is there any way—any hope—that the nanomites and I could find you and help you escape?
I shifted my eyes away from the screen as additional realizations disturbed and clogged my thinking: The nanomites were communicating with me? After these many weeks of frustration, after all my efforts and many attempts to reach them, to reason with them, to get them off me and out of me—NOW they were speaking?
And, apparently, they did know my name and actually “heard” and paid attention to what I said?
Grrr!
The bright message superimposed upon my laptop’s screen began to fade, disclosing the body of Dr. Bickel’s email behind it. I shook myself, set aside my anger—however justified—and copied the email text into a new file, deleted the email, then purged the folder and the trash.
The screen glowed silver again, interrupting my tasks. More blue words appeared.
INTRUSION DETECTED
NETWORK COMPROMISED
WIRELESS ACCESS
TERMINATED FROM
REMOTE TERMINAL
I sucked in a breath. Cushing! She didn’t leave—she’s here and monitoring me in real time! And I still needed to upload the file containing Dr. Bickel’s email and the all-important file that documented my experiences with the nanomites.
As I groped for the flash drive, I reproached myself for my stupidity. Why, oh, why did I write everything down? For what purpose? How could I have been so foolish? So stupid!
I didn’t need to answer my own censure. I had been a different person “back then,” before the nanomites had invaded me. My trials since then had made me wiser.
New words flashed onto the screen.
GO NOW
GEMMA KEYES
Cold sweat prickled my skin, but I couldn’t leave my journal for Cushing to find—Abe, Zander, and Emilio were named in it! And if I deleted the file but did not trash the hard drive, her IT people would recover the deleted file.
Again, the screen flashed.
GEMMA KEYES
GO NOW
NOW
NOW
NOW
The mites stung my hand to spur me into action. I was out of time—but was I out of options? No—because the nanomites could hear me.
Fine. Then let them do the work.
“Nano!” My voice was harsh. Ragged. “Upload files, ‘Gemma’s Log’ and ‘Email Text.’ Then burn the hard disk!”
I resigned myself to whatever happened next: The mites would either listen and do what I commanded or they would ignore me—as they had for the most part so far.
If the mites refused to follow my directions, then I was done for. I was determined to deny Cushing my firsthand testimonial—that ill-conceived record of my experiences with Dr. Bickel’s nanomites. With that file in her possession, Cushing would know my current predicament and all my vulnerabilities. More than that, she would know who my friends were—the people I loved—and she would not hesitate to use them as leverage to bend me to her will.
So, if the nanomites refused my instructions, I would stay and delete the files and try to trash the hard drive. Even if it meant capture.
I would let Cushing take me before I placed my friends in harm’s way.
While those thoughts flashed through my mind, I jammed the flash drive into the USB port and opened a command prompt—but before I could begin to type, two blue streaks jetted from my fingertips. My hands jerked and pulled away, yet the two streaks of light converged on the screen, unfurled as a blue aura that overspread the flash drive and body of the laptop, retracted, returned to me, and vanished.
The laptop’s screen dimmed and died. Wisps of smoke tried to follow the laser beams as they withdrew into my hands, but they could not.
The smell of fried electronics wafted up to my nostrils.
“Huh!”
The background thrum in my head rose in volume and urgency.
I raced for the back door, leaving my bug-out bags on the couch. I had my hand on the door handle when I heard the rush of booted feet upon the driveway.
Too late. Cushing and her thugs hadn’t left after all. She’d used an age-old military ploy, a feigned withdrawal—and I’d fallen for it.
The back door crashed open—almost flattening me against the wall behind it. I dropped into a crouch as a stacked line of armed men clad in black tactical garb and gear poured into my tiny house. They shouted, “Federal agents!” and “Gemma Keyes! Show yourself!”
Not a chance.
I pushed my backside into the crack between the fridge and the wall where I stored the broom and mop.
As the first man charged by me—his head canted toward the dining room—I saw he was equipped with weird goggles that protruded forward, beyond his face.
Night vision goggles? Thermal imaging? If the man wearing the goggles looked my way, would he see my heat signature?
Or would the nanomites mask it?
I had no idea—and right then was no time to find out. I curled into a ball and made myself as small a target as I could manage. My crouch sank into a deep squat; my thighs screamed in protest.
The last man rushed by me and turned the corner into the dining room. From farther within the house I heard multiple shouts of “Clear!”
I wasn’t going to wait around for them to come back. I bolted out the back door and swung left, heading around the garage. If more of Cushing’s goggle-geared goons were about, I needed to put distance and as many physical barriers as possible between them and me. Although I could still hear shouted commands and responses coming from inside my house, I rounded the back of the garage without anyone raising an alarm at my escape.
In the rear corner of my lot, I shimmied up and over the rough cinder block wall into a neighbor’s yard. I landed on the other side and did not pause to consider the scrapes and bruises I’d sustained. I raced through the yard, tripped over a sprinkler, got up, stumbled past the neighbor’s confused dog and out their side gate. I hit the open street and headed toward the downtown area where, if Cushing’s men followed me, I hoped barhopping foot traffic would confuse their thermal-imaging readings and make pursuit difficult.
Of course, I couldn’t make it all the way downtown in one effort. I ran until I could run no farther, then slumped down between two parked cars. My lungs were on fire. The huge adrenaline boost my body had produced was wearing off, and I shook all over.
Out on the street, all was dark and quiet.
No pursuit so far.
After ten minutes, I made myself get up and get moving.
Good thing I had a place to hide.
Because I could never go back home.
~~**~~