Part 18 (1/2)

The second thought was that he had himself called Ashby at Special Branch. And if he had left promptly, Ashby would not be far behind. Especially the way he he drove. Harry did not want Ashby to run into a similar reception committee at Hubway, so he pulled himself to his feet and navigated his way through the woods back to the main gate. drove. Harry did not want Ashby to run into a similar reception committee at Hubway, so he pulled himself to his feet and navigated his way through the woods back to the main gate.

He waited at the edge of the woods, within site of the drive and the road. He could see the security camera panning back and forth like a hunting cobra as it surveyed the main gate, but he had no way of knowing who was watching the pictures it was relaying. The question now was whether to wait for Ashby, or to start walking and try to find a telephone.

Harry decided to give it half an hour. There was little traffic, so spotting Ashby's car should not be a problem. That said, he stopped one car convinced it was Ashby only to be greeted by a little old lady who was far from amused and nearly ran him down when he asked if she had a phone he could use. Harry stood in the middle of the road watching the grey Cosworth receding rapidly into the distance and wondered both where the lady got her vocabulary and how she managed to reach the pedals.

159.

While he was still standing there, like a world-weary rabbit, a car horn sounded loudly just behind him. He leaped to the side of the road and the grey car drew level with him.

The window wound down. 'You looking for a lift, Commander?' asked Sergeant Fawn.

'Thank G.o.d,' Harry said. He could see Ashby over Fawn's shoulder as he reversed the car on to the verge behind Harry.

Harry got in the back seat. 'There's a few things you need to know,' he said, and explained quickly about his own abortive visit to the house.

'I'll call for back-up from the local boys,' Ashby said.

'Sounds like they didn't take Hanson seriously.'

'Or he didn't take you seriously,' Fawn told Harry.

'Thanks. Then I suggest we find out what they're up to in there.'

'How do you reckon we go about that?'

Harry grinned. 'I'm going to phone them and ask,' he said.

The Doctor was sitting in front of the blank screen in his attic hideaway. He had shut the computer down, finding the noise of the cooling fan distracting. Much better to sit back and listen to the sound of the birds outside. The sounds of machinegun fire from the front of the house had been another distraction, but thankfully short-lived. He hoped that the sound was the only thing that had been short-lived about whatever was happening.

The problem he was working on was straightforward. But he suspected the solution would be rather more convoluted.

Somehow he had to prevent Stabfield and his hench-creatures from loading their copy of the compact disc into the network.

Or he had to isolate or neutralize the Voractyll creature as soon as it appeared in the system.

He turned the computer back on. It would help if he could find a way to monitor their access points to the network. He opened the main network and watched each of the system resources pop up as his machine connected to them.

He stared at the screen, thankful that the resources were limited to the Hubway systems. But then another network node appeared. It was labelled New York Hub: Server 1 New York Hub: Server 1. The second 160 New York server appeared a second later, followed by nodes in London, Tokyo, Sydney, and Geneva. Then the screen was splashed with icon upon icon as hundreds showed up together.

It took the Doctor a moment to realize what was happening.

It was just on noon GMT. He was watching what should have been the showpiece of the opening ceremony. Controlled entirely by the systems themselves, and exactly on schedule, Hubway main European node of the global information superhighway was going on-line. And its network, the network to which Stabfield and Voractyll had access, stretched round the entire globe.

The Voracian technician monitoring the systems via Stabfield's laptop machine had a similar view of the situation to the Doctor. 'Global link-up complete. This hub now has access to all domains,' it reported.

Stabfield nodded. 'We should now get maximum deployment. We have access wider even than the Asia-Pacific and US hubs.'

'They both link off this node?' Johanna asked.

'They do. This is the most modern installation, and they make use of the bandwidth and line speeds Hubway can offer.'

'The ideal feeding ground for Voractyll.' Johanna smiled.

The phone on the desk beside them rang. Stabfield picked it up. 'Yes?'

He listened for a moment, then said: 'You'd better put him through.' He turned to Johanna. 'The Security Services.

Slightly ahead of predicted schedule, but never mind.'

'How very efficient,' Johanna commented.

Stabfield was already talking into the phone. 'Commander Sullivan, what a pleasant surprise. My name is Lionel Stabfield and I currently have on my inventory various technicians, the Director of Hubway, a d.u.c.h.ess and an Amba.s.sador. Oh yes, and of course many millions of pounds' worth of information technology which gives me a certain amount of control. Let me tell you what you can do for me before my a.s.sets start to depreciate.'

161.

Harry handed the phone back to Sergeant Fawn. He looked at the two policemen. They had all heard Stabfield through the car's speaker system. Ashby had taped the conversation.

'Doesn't want much, does he?' Fawn said.

'I don't believe it,' Harry said slowly.

'Which bit?' Ashby asked. 'The money, the publicity, the destruction of all nuclear weapons, or the freedom for political and terrorist prisoners as yet unnamed?'

'I don't believe any of it. I think he's actually after something completely different. All his demands are designed to keep us occupied, to keep us trying to stall him while we make no effort to fulfil them but seem to play along.'

'It is usually a waiting game. The bigger the demands, the longer we can claim it is taking.'

'Exactly,' Harry said. 'I don't know what he's up to, but I think he needs time to do it.'

The Doctor had decided he needed some answers. He was not prepared yet to reveal his presence to Stabfield, so he could only ask one person. Or rather, creature. He turned the CD over in his hands. Voractyll was unlikely to reveal much to him, so he needed another approach.

'All right,' he said at last, 'we'll do this the old-fas.h.i.+oned way.'

He disconnected the sound inputs to the computer and closed down the network access. It meant he would not be able to see what Stabfield was up to, but equally Voractyll would be unable to escape into the Hubway systems. For the first time, the Doctor was grateful for his primitive makes.h.i.+ft set-up. Had the attic room been better equipped, it might have had wireless network access, and that could have made things rather more difficult.

The Doctor loaded the CD and opened a command prompt window he could type into. Once Voractyll was active, he imagined it would be scanning for any communications or objects it could address.

'Well, now for the big question will it work?' The Doctor crossed his fingers and clumsily typed: > Fax Machine 5498 on-line 162.

Almost immediately, Voractyll responded. It sent a stream of data to the device which had identified itself as a fax machine. The command prompt interpreted the data as a character string and printed it on the screen.

>> Fax Machine 5498: I am Voractyll The Doctor rubbed his hands together. Now they were getting somewhere. He uncrossed his fingers, and typed rapidly: > What is Voractyll?

>> I bring Reason > How?

>> Open OffNet protocol interpreter 'So that's how it's done.' The Doctor was beginning to understand. Voractyll could communicate with any machine which was enabled for OffNet. And that meant just about every piece of office equipment from fax machines to photocopiers, from desktop computers to printers. And, if Harry was right, an increasing number of domestic machines like video recorders and was.h.i.+ng machines would understand to say nothing of military hardware and large mainframe computers. But what was it Voractyll would tell them?

> Interpreter open.

A stream of gibberish printed endlessly across the screen.