Chapter Five #2
Another good piece of information. That meant the footage was being sent on a computerized schedule, not just when the killer felt like it.
“Look alive, people,” Mean Guy said as he sat down at the main computer terminal. “Remember we’re still running all possible scenarios and solutions. Just because it didn’t work one time doesn’t mean it won’t work this time. Everybody do your job.”
Sure enough, right as the clock reached zero, every screen on the wall of monitors lit up.
The picture was just slightly blurry, enough to make it a little hazy. Bree wanted to ask if that was always the case, but didn’t want to interrupt anyone from the jobs they were trying to do. The broadcasting window was limited. She could ask questions later.
The picture wasn’t so blurry that you couldn’t see what was going on.
There was a woman restrained in a long, thin box.
It looked almost like a clear coffin. The woman in the box was shown from the neck down.
Her head was completely out of the shot.
There was nothing distinguishing about the box itself.
Water was dripping into the box at the woman’s feet in a regular, timed pattern. It had already filled a few inches of the container, but not enough to be very noticeable.
Something caught the woman’s attention because she immediately began sobbing.
“Please! Help me please. Can you hear me? Please help me!”
Bree realized Tanner was next to her when he muttered a curse under his breath.
Bree’s eyebrows furrowed. “Why does her voice sound funny?” she whispered to him.
“Bastard is using some sort of voice modulator.”
That didn’t make any sense to her, but neither did trapping a woman in some sort of coffin and slowly filling it up with water.
They had exactly twenty-three more seconds of the woman’s hysterical crying before the feed completely cut off.
Bree looked over at Tanner, who looked as stunned as she felt, then glanced back around her. “I should’ve been watching what they were doing rather than the screen.” She pointed to the dozen people huddled around the multiple computers.
“It’s hard to look away from something like that.” Tanner reached over and squeezed her elbow. “And from what I understand, you only have to wait another fifty-nine minutes to get your chance and do it all over again. No wonder everyone here is such a mess.”
Not having to wait long was a good thing. Footage coming in once an hour meant more opportunities for them to catch this guy.
“All right, people, sound off,” Mean Guy said, like some NASA mission control simulation. “Tell me we got something.”
“IP address was rerouted through multiple VPNs once again.”
“Jumped to at least one public Wi-Fi, but not the same one as last time, so no triangulation.”
“Top level was definitely utilizing a proxy server again. Encrypted coding.”
With every announcement of unsuccessful attempts to home in on the killer, the group became more despondent. Mean Guy got shorter and shorter in his responses.
The blonde, Penelope, walked to the front of the room. She erased the number twelve from the whiteboard and wrote down thirteen, then turned to the people around her.
“I know you’re tired. I know you’re frustrated. We’ve been watching this happen for twelve hours now. I know seeing that woman suffering every single hour eats at all of us. But you need to focus. We’ve got less than an hour to have a new way of trying to catch this guy.”
Mean Guy threw his hands up. “Triangulating his location just isn’t possible. Whichever way we come at him from, he’s already expecting it.”
“Jeremy...” Penelope started.
“It’s not impossible.” Bree hadn’t meant to cut off whatever Penelope had planned to tell mean Jeremy, but that had to be said.
“What?” Jeremy stood up from behind his computer and took a slight step toward Bree, eyes narrowed. She immediately felt Tanner shift a little closer, ready to step in, not that she thought Jeremy was going to hurt her.
She shrugged. “No offense—it’s not impossible.”
“Really?” he scoffed. “You’ve been here less than five minutes, saw twenty-three seconds of footage, and now you just know everything?” He turned back to Penelope. “No offense, boss, but this is not the sort of help we need.”
Bree wasn’t going to be cowed. Not about this. “Impossible is the term regular people use to make themselves feel safer about technology. To hide away from its fullest potential,” she said softly. “And I knew that long before I walked in here today.”
She’d learned it the hardest way possible when she was just a teenager.
Jeremy threw up his hands. “You think you can do better than we have? Be my guest.”
A year ago, unable to read the interpersonal clues or tones, Bree would’ve thought that was an actual legitimate welcome to take over.
She leaned over toward Tanner. “I don’t think he really meant that as an offer,” she whispered. “I think he feels threatened by me. But I just want to help.”
Tanner nodded and gave her a small smile. “He’s frustrated. Everyone is. But they do want your help.”
“Then I need everybody to get out of my way so I can get to work.” She knew others could hear her, but it was the truth.
Jeremy let out a curse and a laugh.
Penelope cleared her throat. “People, this is Bree Daniels.”
There was a slight murmur as her name was recognized.
“Yes, that Bree Daniels, who was responsible for bringing down Michael Jeter and the rest of the criminals hiding behind Communication For All,” Penelope continued. “I daresay she might have some ideas we haven’t thought of. So let’s give her some room to work.”
Jeremy walked over to Penelope and began arguing about something, but Bree wasn’t paying any attention. She sat down in the seat Jeremy had vacated and pulled up what she needed on the system. It was time to go to work.
Nothing was impossible when it came to her and computers.