Gia’s voice sounded from the vid-screen. With it, the display shifted to display her position with pinpoint precision in the digital construct.
Not that knowing her position had done us any good so far.
“HyperOven interference?” Katie repeated. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I held my palms together and then widened the space between them. The image on the left side of the display zoomed through the cabin wall to show the interior. I magnified the image until the HyperOven filled the frame.
“It’s a HyperOven,” Jarret said in a flat tone. “So what?”
I shook my head. Every second counted, but we were chasing black holes with no hope of catching them.
Behind me, the steady beep of Gia’s and Harlan’s life support equipment pulled at my nerves. “Any improvement?”
“If there were, I would tell you.” Dr. Fisher said, her voice sharp and commanding, as always when she worked.
In the time since we’d met the Web Witch, Dr. Fisher had finished her surgery and barreled into the room out of breath. Although she and I had started our relationship at odds—when my parents yanked her off her dream project to build my cybernetic arm—we’d grown to rely on each other.
She was the only person I trusted to care for Gia and Harlan right now.
“There’s nothing I can do except keep their bodies viable until their minds return.” She jerked her chin at the vid. “You do your job, and I’ll do mine.”
The large blonde woman had a presence bigger than her six-foot frame. She exuded authority and competence. Her team had already lugged two ice baths into the room, and Harlan and Gia each occupied one, fully clothed. Monitors beeped their vital signs.
The beeps stretched further and further apart. Soon, there would be a gulf between them.
If they got too far apart, it would be time to negotiate with this hacker.
Jarret manipulated the vid to put Gia back on the screen, still peering through the cabin window. In 32K resolution, every pine needle and notch of wood stood out like a distinct entity. Gia’s shirt was now dirt-covered and torn. A small circular orb floated nearby.
I pointed. “Is that a surveillance drone?”
Jarret nodded. “A new model, designed to be difficult for intruders to disable.”
“That explains the footage the Web Witch sent us of Gia walking through the woods.”
He mumbled his agreement.
“A fully operational surveillance drone inside my construct,” I said. “Hovering outside a cabin, which is also inside my construct. This Web Witch doesn’t like to go small, does she?”
“Definitely not,” Jarret agreed as he zoomed in on the cabin’s interior.
The inside was a mishmash of eras, with copper pots hanging from hooks and an imposing wood-burning oven that dominated the small space. The HyperOven sat only a foot away from what looked like a pump-action sink that predated my parents.
For her digital representation, the Web Witch had stuck with the hag she’d presented during our call. Despite a face undefinably ancient, her back remained rod straight rather than bent over by years.
On the vid, she pulled Harlan’s face close to hers. They were planted in front of the oven. The open door revealed a blaze inside. Her bony fingers dug into his cheeks as she teased him closer to the fire.
She seemed in no hurry. A smile twisted her mouth.
She enjoyed this.
“If she throws him in there …” The implications were too terrifying to articulate.
“He’ll never be able to exit the construct,” Jarret finished for me.
Harlan’s mind would die. Without the mind, the body is an empty shell. He would be unable to return to reality, and it would be my fault. My creation, my responsibility.
“How did she get in my construct?” I shouted. My heart pounded in my chest as panic threatened to take over. “Do we have any idea?”
“Got it,” Katie said. Her arms waved at the air in front of her, manipulating data that slid across the vid. “There was an opportunity for code injection when we switched constructs without initiating a full exit.”
“Code injection from where? We’re on a closed network. You can’t just inject code into a CyberCorp device without …”
Jarret, Katie, and I all froze at the same time.
A split second later, Jarret scrambled into motion. “I’m calling security.” He tapped his micro-comm even as he moved to the corner of the room to make the call in private. “Get me security at the request of Lena Hayes. There’s a hacker …”
“How could I let this happen?” I stared slack-jawed at the Web Witch and Harlan on the display.
“It’s not unexpected,” Katie said. “The point of prototypes is to discover issues.”
“This is a huge damn issue,” I snapped. I pulled in deep breaths and let my focus narrow on all the facts. “What do you think she meant about the HyperOven?”
Off to the side, Jarret screamed at security through his micro-comm, telling them the hack had come from inside the building. It was the only explanation.
“I’m not sure,” Katie said. To the vid, she added, “Run a search for HyperOven interference.”
New data came flying onto the vid.
Jared returned from making his call, his face red. “They’re searching the premises. It shouldn’t take long since all ID chips in the building are logged. The hacker will be one of the few without one. Security will need to cross-reference their motion detectors with anyone chipless and find who doesn’t belong.
“Ten minutes?” I guessed.
Jarret cringed. “They said thirty. It’s a full house today.”
“These two might not have that long,” Dr. Fisher called from behind us.
The beeps marking Harlan’s and Gia’s vitals were so far apart that, after each one, I wondered if it was the last. Despite the ice bath, sweat rolled down Gia’s forehead. Her brother’s face looked just as ashen despite his brown skin.
“Remember,” Fisher said grimly. Her gaze found mine and locked. “You do your job.”
“And you’ll do yours,” I muttered. I returned my attention to Katie. “What have you got?”
“Here.” She blew up two documents side by side on the display.
They looked like court filings. Lots of legal jargon, but it was clear enough that the HyperOven’s manufacturer had paid an ungodly amount of money to two plaintiffs related to electrical interference.
“Give me the condensed version,” I said.
“The HyperOven causes an unexpectedly large electrical interference,” Katie said. As she spoke, lines in the documents lit up yellow to draw my attention. “There have been numerous lawsuits. In these two cases, medical devices running nearby experienced issues due to the interference. It didn’t end well.”
“Ouch.” An epiphany hit me. “Can we send a message to Harlan?”
“Sure,” Jarret said. “He hasn’t dropped any of his breadcrumbs. We can reverse their functionality and use them to send a message to him. We would get less than a second for each, though, since part of the recording time for each one has to be used up for the reversal itself.”
“He has seven breadcrumbs,” I said. “Seven seconds.”
Jarret nodded. “Less than seven seconds. Make it count.”
On the left side of the vid, the hag and Harlan were close enough to the fire that orange-yellow flames reflected in Harlan’s terrified eyes.
I stood straighter. “Send this message …”