Part of me thought this time would be different, yet I feel almost nothing again.
My vision might be slightly sharper, but that could be from the lights Muhomor just turned on. Also, my hearing seems keener, almost like I can tell which keys Muhomor is banging on his keyboard, but this could be an illusion as well. I guess I’ll feel more as my brain adjusts to its new capabilities, like before.
“It might help if you get on a better connection,” Ada says when I complain to her. “I had more effects than you described.”
“Okay,” I say, “but I’m not sure I want to get on Muhomor’s Wi-Fi.”
“Speaking of the devil, I think he has something,” Mitya chimes in.
I look over and see everyone huddling around Muhomor as he turns around and says, “Govrilovskiy was a solid lead and proves I was right about the intelligence community connection.”
At his audience’s blank stares, he asks me to explain and resumes typing. I go through his SVR-contractor theory for those who had to leave the room and for my NYC friends. Since Muhomor is only paying attention to his computer, no doubt working on this lead, I guesstimate the answers to all their questions. I even go as far as proposing theories about the sinister applications the Russian government—and especially the KGB’s offspring agency—might have for the Brainocyte technology.
I’m in the middle of discussing the benefits of having telepathic-like coms and various Augmented Reality overlays on the battlefield, when Muhomor stops typing and says, “Like I thought, Govrilovskiy is the head of a group that acts as a contractor for the agency. He has connections in the government, in business, and particularly in the criminal underworld. The good news is I just got into his organization’s systems and located a few facilities where his people might keep important research subjects.” He works on his computer for a few seconds, and maps of different parts of Russia appear on several screens. “The bad news is there are twelve locations.” More maps show up on the screens. “The worse news is that each and every location is pretty much a fortress.”
“Can you locate this Govrilovskiy?” Gogi strokes his mustache with his index finger and thumb in a movie-villain manner. “If we had him, we could find out where our quarry is.”
Bile rises in my throat as I picture the methods they might use to find out this information. Alex’s ordeal is still very fresh in my psyche.
“Let me try,” Muhomor replies without turning. “This might take a while, so why don’t you all stretch your legs a little?”
Given Joe’s body language, it’s clear he’s considering making Muhomor work faster by putting a gun to the thin man’s head. He doesn’t actually get his weapon out, though, so maybe he decided that’s not the best motivational tool at his disposal.
I locate a dingy chair a few feet from Muhomor and close my eyes for a second. It’s a mistake, because it makes me realize how utterly tired I am. There’s jetlag, and then there’s jetlag combined with the crash you experience after a monstrous release of adrenaline. Despite all this, a spark of an idea—something that might avoid more torture and improve our chances at a successful rescue—keeps gnawing away at my weary brain, keeping me awake. I rub my temples as though trying to physically jumpstart my brain, and in a jolt of inspiration, a way to locate Mom comes to me.
Hopefully, Muhomor is as good a hacker as I think he is.
Before I speak up, I mentally share my idea with Ada and Mitya. When I’m done, Ada says, “See, the boost might already be working. That’s a great idea. I’m ashamed I didn’t come up with it myself.”
“I feel like I would’ve suggested it with time,” Mitya says, his avatar bashful. “I’ll send you the specs you’ll need.”
“I have an idea,” I say, walking back to Muhomor.
“This guy is very careful when it comes to his whereabouts,” Muhomor tells me over his shoulder, and I suspect he didn’t hear my soft-spoken proclamation. “No obvious calendar entries, no—”
“I know how to locate Mom without him,” I say firmly. “Can you look at me, please?”
Muhomor turns around, and for the first time since the shootout, he looks like himself. He even located another pair of sunglasses, and they’re back in place, sitting on his nose.
“According to an app I wrote with my friends,” I begin, “my mom’s Brainocytes aren’t currently on any network, either Wi-Fi or cellular.”
“Understood,” Muhomor says. “Otherwise, we’d know where she is.”
“Right,” I reply. “But think about it. The Brainocytes are probably trying to connect to the Wi-Fi at these locations you mentioned. The network must be secure, and thus her connection requests keep failing.”
Muhomor’s eyes widen with excitement. “Of course. But if I hack into the Wi-Fi and leave the right ports open—”
“She’d connect and we’d know her location,” I finish. “I’ll send over the ports and the specs for the logins.”
“Actually,” Mitya mentally chimes in, “we could also communicate with your mom once she’s on Wi-Fi. Given enough time, I can write something to piggyback on her current interface.”
I don’t mention what Mitya said to Muhomor because the hacker is already working on the problem, and I don’t want to delay him. Instead, I walk around his hideout, collecting parts for another, much less defined idea I have.
It takes me half an hour to locate a small night-vision camera, and a few more minutes to find something I can use to make a tiny harness.
“I can modify this stuff into a camera like the one I’m wearing and turn Mr. Spock into a spy,” I mentally type.
“Sure,” Ada says. “That’ll work great at night. During the day, we can capture what Mr. Spock sees through his Brainocytes.”
“Yep,” I reply. “I remembered that. I just know that rats have poor night vision, so—”
A noise that must’ve originally been meant to signal the start of a nuclear bombardment fills the hideout. Oddly, it sounds familiar, like the ding of a computer notification, except obscenely loud.
Then it hits me.
It’s the alarm Ada put together to notify me when Mom gets online. The app was running in the background all this time. The fact that it just went off means Muhomor must’ve hacked the bad guys’ Wi-Fi and opened a port for Mom’s Brainocytes.
Confirming my realization, Muhomor yells, “Eureka!”
“I have the location.” On her avatar, Ada’s relieved eyes look as tired as I feel. “Sending it to you now.”
I summon Joe and the others and send the location to Muhomor. Then we all huddle around the wall of monitors.
“They’re in the Chelyabinsk facility,” Muhomor says disappointedly. “It’s one of the heavier-fortified locations.”
On the screens, we see schematics of the buildings on the compound, as well as a very discouraging satellite view. This place is to a fortress what a fortress is to a wooden hut. Five thousand acres in size with barbed-wire-topped walls surrounding it, the place looks like a military base.
“This”—I point at a building in the middle of the facility—“is where Mom is.”
Joe looks at Gogi expectantly, and the Georgian nods, saying, “I think I can devise a plan, but I’ll need more details.”
Muhomor provides Gogi with a ton of information about the facility and some of the resources we can use.
At the end of it all, Gogi explains the plan he formed based on all our data, and as he goes on, he breaks many of my expectations. I always thought when I located Mom there’d be something like a heist to get her out. If not a heist, then maybe a hostage negotiation. But what Gogi is proposing is neither.
It’s more along the lines of a SEAL Team Six black op—something a venture capitalist like me can’t even imagine participating in.
“You can take a nap en route,” Gogi tells me when the preparations begin. “It’s an hour drive to the supermarket, and half an hour more to get the other supplies from Muhomor’s shadier connections. From there, it’s forty minutes to the plane, and then a two-and-a-half-hour flight to Chelyabinsk.”
Lyuba is driving again; this time, we’re in a station wagon. She transferred all the weapons Alex provided into this car, but not the man himself. Him, she tied up and left behind. I don’t dare ask what her plans are for him, because I probably won’t like the answer.
As we leave the bumpy dirt road of Gadyukino behind, I try to sleep, but the remnants of adrenaline in my system thwart my attempts.
When we get to our first stop, the supermarket, I look around and can’t help but be impressed by the very American abundance of items. Back in the late eighties, when the empty store shelves held only canned seaweed, Russians couldn’t have even dreamed of this.
What’s extra impressive is that the supermarket contains a bunch of businesses inside, similar to a Wal-Mart. Purely on a whim, I walk into the hair salon.
“How can I help you?” the hairstylist asks. Styles in Russia often lag behind, so she has a poodle-like eighties hairdo that reminds me of the cashiers from my childhood. However, her smile is genuine, unlike the horrific customer service back in the Soviet era.
“I’d like you to color him gray-black,” I say in Russian and take out Mr. Spock.
The woman’s composure cracks, and her eyes widen. Before she can decide to kick me out, I take out a thick roll of hundred-dollar bills.
Her eyes threaten to pop out of her head, but the cash does its job. Without a hint of hesitancy, she gently takes the little guy from my hands and asks, “Do you want me to leave this pink streak on top?”
“No,” I say as seriously as I can. “He’ll be doing something stealthy at night, so the pink won’t be right for that.”
If the woman thinks I’m dangerous or crazy—a fairly reasonable assumption at this point—she hides it well and proceeds to color Mr. Spock, who endures the whole process stoically, almost as though he understands the reason behind this human madness.
With the rat disguise complete, I get Mr. Spock a bunch of treats and head back to the car.
Once we start driving, I go over Gogi’s plan in my mind and find that the very first step makes sleeping nearly impossible. I settle for trying to relax, using all my willpower not to think about the inevitable.
When we get to Mitya’s plane, all my attempts to relax evaporate. I’m so terrified of what’s about to happen I don’t even notice the departure—what I used to think was the worst part of flying. That was before I knew what we’re about to do.
Realizing I can’t clench my teeth during the whole two-and-a-half-hour flight, no matter how justified that would be, I keep my eyes shut and do my best to stop myself from panicking. It’s impossible, though, given what I know.
When the plane is over the Chelyabinsk facility, I’m going to do the craziest thing I’ve ever done in my life.
I’m going to jump out of the plane.