Alien Research

CHAPTER 53

STRYKER STARED AT ADRIANA. “There’s no way. The Chernobog myth started in the eighties.”

Adriana shrugged. “Grandmother was certainly alive and quite . . . active, at that time.”

“Olga’s former KGB, Eddy. Get with the program. Does she know Chernobog on sight or merely by reputation?”

“You’ll have to ask her,” Adriana said. She stood up, pulled her phone out, and stepped away to have a fast conversation in Romanian. She hung up and nodded. “If Len and Kyle will assist me, Grandmother would like to join us.”

“We can go there,” I offered. Olga was wheelchair-bound due to multiple sclerosis. Saw no reason to put her out.

“No, she said that under the circumstances, she would prefer to come here.”

“I’ll go along as well,” White said. He and the boys followed Adriana out.

“We’ll never hear the end of it from Yuri,” Stryker muttered.

“Whatever. I’m just happy that Chernobog is real. Because a real person can be found, reasoned with, threatened, and, above all, stopped.”

Tito, Melanie, and Emily joined us before anyone in the room could tell me I was wrong. Melanie looked like Raquel Welch when she’d been starring in movies mostly naked and Emily resembled a young Sophia Loren. It wasn’t hard to see where Lorraine and Claudia got their Dazzler good looks.

Both women looked no worse for their hostage ordeal, though like everyone else, they did look a little more tired than normal. But, they and Tito looked worried.

“What’s wrong?” Jeff asked before I could.

“You mean besides the fact that the only research we have left is what’s on Tito’s laptop?” Melanie asked.

“Meaning if there’s a new strain of Surcenthumain out there, we don’t know how to counter it any more?” Emily added. “Other than that and all the other fun from yesterday, Tito’s got another question we can’t answer.”

“I’ve been thinking about yesterday’s attacks,” Tito said. “Kevin, I was wondering—was any other agency hit or affected by the computer virus that wiped us out, do you know?”

Kevin shook his head. “Didn’t have time to think about asking.”

“I asked,” Buchanan said, shocking me not at all. “The only agency reporting any issues was the C.I.A.’s Extra-Terrestrial Division.”

“My division,” Chuckie said with a groan. “Nice. What did we lose?”

“Your systems back up differently from Centaurion’s, so you lost less. Plus, some of your data was sent over to Homeland Security and the F.B.I., so you’ve probably lost less than it’ll first appear. Damage was still being verified this morning. Angela is aware and investigating, and before you ask, we didn’t tell you until just now because you needed to focus on your wife and her family yesterday.” Buchanan turned back to Tito. “That was a good question. Why are you asking it?”

“It dawned on me last night, after we all went to bed, that there had to be a reason they stole and wiped out our data.”

“Tito asked us, but we didn’t hear anything while we were captives that seems relevant,” Emily said.

“They did it to cripple us,” Christopher suggested.

“There are easier ways to do that than computer hacking,” Tito said.

“To learn what we know,” Irving suggested.

Tito nodded. “I agree with that. However, why wipe us out? They could have hacked us and gotten the information without our knowing it.”

“Two days ago I’d have told you that was impossible,” Stryker said. “And, yeah, if we accept that Chernobog is real, then that means it’s possible that everything we’ve ever been told he’s done is real. And if he could do what he did yesterday, then he absolutely could have hacked our systems without us knowing.”

“So why let us know?” Irving asked. “To panic or distract us?”

“To prevent us from being able to rescue our people at Home Base and the Science Center?” Christopher suggested.

Tim shook his head. “No. That makes no sense.”

“Why not?” Amy asked.

Considered Tim’s statement. “We only lost one person, and they only installed one android.”

“We were lucky,” Jeff said. “Because we almost didn’t save anyone.”

“That’s inaccurate,” Raj countered. “While the loss is still painful, to only lose one person during this kind of takeover is more than an acceptable loss ratio. And before anyone starts yelling at me, I’m no happier than anyone else that Michael lost his life because of these terrorists. However, Kitty’s correct—why take over two entire facilities to only install one android, which is already destroyed, and only kill one person?”

“We know they installed whatever they’ve created that can block the imageers while they were there,” I said. “Could that have been the only reason they took over the facilities?”

“No,” Irving said. “Think about it. Whoever hacked us hacked every single A-C facility. If they could do that remotely, they could certainly install whatever’s affecting the imageers remotely as well.”

Stryker straightened up. “Did they do everything remotely? Or even anything remotely? Proximity equals access.”

“As Henry proved when we hacked Gaultier,” Amy agreed.

Tim and I looked at each other. “Revenge,” Tim said.

“Yeah. We took their stuff, they go one further and not only take, but wipe out, all of ours.”

“Okay,” Jeff said slowly. “I can see that. And it would prevent us from using their information against them. But that means you two are saying that Gaultier was involved with what happened yesterday.”

“Why not? We were pretty sure that Gaultier had someone vying for the Apprentice job, potentially more than one.” My vote was every one of the Land Sharks. Maybe they were an Apprentice Collective. “What if whoever over there won the job?”

“Or if new trials are going on,” Raj said.

“Any one of the three trying to block me could be the Apprentice,” Amy agreed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if all three were going for the job, in that sense. They work together, but they’re not tight. I’d call them rivals, at best.”

“Titan and YatesCorp have to be considered,” Buchanan said. “The room the hostages were in could have been put under Gaultier to throw suspicion onto them.”

“That’s also the part of the tunnels no cameras catch,” Stryker said. “So the possibility of coincidence is there.”

“The room was gone by the time we went back to examine it,” Buchanan added. “And by ‘we’ I mean the P.T.C.U. and by ‘gone’ I mean gone without a trace, Poof Traps as well.”

“We were chained up in a room,” Melanie said dryly. “Believe me, there were walls and a door.”

“Plywood and chicken wire go up fast and come down faster,” Buchanan said. “But if I hadn’t seen Walter’s team and the Marines on video while it was happening, I’d have said the entire thing was faked.”

“Just like the moon landing,” Stryker said.

“Not now, Eddy. Real conspiracies are afoot, let’s focus on those.” Forged on while Stryker grumbled to himself. “We need to figure out who hired Chernobog. We find out who’s signing the Ultimate Hacker Checks, we find out who’s really in charge.”

“Chernobog might not be doing it for money,” Stryker said. “If we assume some of the myths are real, then he’s worked just for the fun of it as often as he’s done it for a paycheck.”

“She,” Olga said, as Len wheeled her into the room. “Chernobog is a woman, though she allows the world to think of her as male.”

“How Yentl of her.”

Olga gave a short laugh. “Yes, in that sense. Part of the reason Chernobog is so . . . vicious . . . in her attacks is because she was tired of constantly being doubted because she was a woman.”

“I’m sure you and my mom went through similar discrimination, and yet you’re not trying to take out the computer systems of the entire free world.”

“Chernobog is not . . . stable.” Olga looked at Stryker. “I’m sad to say that every myth about Chernobog is real.”

“Can we protect against her?” Stryker asked. “Because two days ago I’d have said yes, but yesterday we were hacked like we were preschoolers.”

Olga nodded. “Yes, but it will take more help.” She turned to me. “Your friends the Israelis would be of much assistance with this.”

“They have good hackers?” Potentially they did. I had no idea; it wasn’t something I’d ever chatted about with our Mossad friends who were attached to the Israeli Embassy. We were usually talking to them about assassins and interstellar invasions and things of that kind of fun nature. Of course, hackers and their ilk fell under Chuckie and Stryker’s bailiwick as far as I was concerned.

Olga barked another short laugh. “Yes, but not as good as those working for you. No, the Israelis have something much, much better and, to Chernobog, far more valuable.” She smiled. “They have Chernobog’s son.”