Chapter 16
The Brain
When Luke rose, he stood unsteadily, as if on new legs.
Evan ground out his cigar and moved to his side, not offering his arm but not not offering it either.
Luke reached over and gripped Evan’s biceps to steady himself, the clasp of his fingers almost frail.
It might have been the first time they ever touched.
They started out, Joey drawing into place behind them.
Evan spoke into the black box: “Rawlings to drawing room.”
Rawlings was waiting at the door already, as if he’d been conjured into existence, and together they all moved up the hall, a procession of the dying king.
Evan said, “I need to get to the city. As quickly as possible.”
“I’ll have you choppered in.” Devine sounded, finally and for once, exhausted.
Rawlings: “I thought you said helicopters aren’t allowed in the city anymore.”
“Not to pick up a call girl,” Devine said. “But this is important. Get Vimal from the Eastern Region Helicopter Council on the phone. And who’s that asshole at the FAA, the one with the diaper fetish?”
Rawlings said, “On it.”
“You can leave from the helipad on the back lawn.” Devine cleared his throat, his fragile grasp tightening on Evan’s arm. “We’ll put you down on the roof of the fucking UN if we need to.”
“Not my style.”
A wan grin. “Of course not.”
Evan tilted his head to indicate Joey at their heels. “And I need to get her online.”
Devine said, “For what?”
“To track the young woman who is in trouble.”
“I need access,” Joey said. “To the databases.”
“Oh, young lady.” Devine halted. “You don’t understand what access is.”
They were standing, Evan realized, before the scarlet door to the inner sanctum, the beehive of servers, sensors, and monitors that gobbled up metrics and trapped them quivering within digital spiderwebs that expanded through the known universe.
Every algorithm, every AI neural network, every sniffed data packet or trafficked byte, every information unit parked on every large-scale database and big data warehouse on every encrypted network the wired world over.
Devine’s tented fingers dimpled the plush fabric of the door. “You can’t imagine the shiny toys I have in there.”
“Bet I can,” Joey said.
“Meet my most priceless achievement,” Devine said. “The Brain.” He leaned into his stiff arm and the door swept open.
Josephine gasped.
A few paces across plush maroon carpet waited a Faraday cage the size of a shipping container, its slatted gate invitingly ajar.
Within, a keyboard and mouse rested on the blotterless desk before an unbroken image the size of a barn door.
Code, recently cracked user accounts, and various camera angles covered the immense image on the screens.
The surveillance footage was too much to take in all at once—every corner of Tartarus, various hacked corporate suites on various continents, Tokyo’s Shibuya Crossing, and—Was that?
Could it possibly be the White House Situation Room?
Spare hard drives were shelved above on wall-mounted racks like pizzas awaiting delivery to a battalion or three, all available for a quick hot swap with any failing disks, thanks to RAID 10 fault tolerance and redundancy, along with full racks of preposterously fast SSDs for redundant cache.
They’d eased inside without realizing they had.
The padded door slurped shut behind them, a cushioned bank-vault hatch, Evan’s ears popping with the shift in air pressure. Two baroque gilded chaise longues luxuriated on the high-pile carpet, backdropped by flocked scarlet wallpaper stippled with fleurs-de-lis.
Joey’s mouth remained open, her face lit with Pre-Raphaelite rapture. The glow of the screen found purchase in her pupils as she stared into the eye of God. Her lips quivered. “Nice setup,” she managed.
“The fate of the world can wait.” Surprising gentleness touched Devine’s voice. “Go find your girl, Mr. Nowhere.”
Inside the scarlet room, Rawlings finished acclimating Joey to the system, a speedy process given her hockey-stick learning curve.
Devine had retreated for a meal and a rest, handed off in the hallway to a trio of wary staff members who’d arrived and stared stupefied at the black box now residing in Evan’s hand.
Joey rubbed her palms together, laced her fingers, twist-and-thrusted them into an eight-knuckle crack. “Hey X, I’m ready to launch here. Whaddaya say you click that black box and order me up some Dr Pepper and Red Vines?”
Evan held the black box out to her.
Joey tilted her head and Rawlings stared at it, confused.
“I don’t get it,” Joey said.
“You’re promoted. You and Rawlings take over once I leave. The only way it’ll work is if you’re both in charge. Rawlings is smarter and more open than you think. And Rawlings? She’s smarter and tougher than you think.”
“I can’t be in charge,” Rawlings said, “of him.”
“You can. I’m investing you both with that authority. If there’s a problem you answer to me. And I will answer to him.”
Evan shook the black box.
At the same time Joey and Rawlings reached for it. At the same time, they withdrew their hands, as if scalded.
Evan repressed a grin, set the black box down on the desk. They could fight over it later. He shot Joey a watch-your-ass look.
And walked out.