Susan's Plague

Chapter 14 - Hacks

An Apex-class MagLev glided silently to a stop along one of the many platforms in the central station beneath the Centreon. A series of tones heralded its arrival and the doors whisked open. Ursula Wilks disembarked the train and walked with a sense of urgency to the nearest elevator.

Ursula was a no-nonsense business woman in her fifties, shrewd and articulate, who had attained her high position through her tireless hard work and steadfast dedication to the job. Her hair was uniformly pewter and cut in a conservative bob, lending to her distinguished look. Always impeccably dressed, her attire was strictly professional, she had no time for fashion statements. Fearless in the boardroom, she swam with the sharks, for she was one herself.

Not one to apologize for achieving such success, she made no effort to disguise the fact she very much enjoyed the power bestowed upon her. She liked to be in charge and rarely had to take orders from anyone, a perk of her position. However, Niles was not just anyone, nor someone you could summarily dismiss, he was one of the very few people Ursula would defer to.

This thing with Wagner and Niles had been stewing for as long as she could remember. When she was an intern researcher fresh out of university, she would hear about them, the see-saw battle between the two was an oft-debated topic among the newly employed scions. Even then their power struggle was legend.

She was having trouble believing Niles was really going to try to remove Wagner from the equation. There was a polarity to that relationship, a necessary natural dichotomy. It was a balance that many powerful people secretly wanted in place. Wagner kept Niles in check. 

It was ludicrous, perhaps insane, she thought. Wagner was essential not only to the day-to-day operations of the Core, but he held the keys to a wealth of Second Age information stored in the Cortex databases. Yes, her teams had been researching how to obtain that data without Wagner's knowledge or consent, and yes, they had made some progress, but she felt apprehensive about actually attempting it. Theories are just theories after all.

The express elevator did not provide much time for introspection and too soon she arrived on the top floor. The doors opened to a long hallway of brilliant white Creole marble, that lead to his office. She didn't remember the marblel from her last visit, a gift from Atlans she guessed. She took a deep breath. It was time to face Niles.

"Come in Ursula, take a seat." Niles said as she entered. Ursula not prepared for his beaten appearance. She tried to conceal her surprise and made every effort to avoid staring at his swollen eye. The odor of liquor lingered in the air, a bottle sat uncorked out in the open and by the looks of it, his glass was recently topped up.

"What happened to you?" She could not help but ask.

"We had an incident in the MemEx Lab," Niles pursed his lips and looked around, choosing his words, "it's being handled. What I want to hear from you is where are we with regard to Wagner. Can we disable his construct?"

"Disable?"

Niles cleared his throat, "Let me make this clear, I have no intent of leaving Wagner intact after the events of today. He has proven to be a significant security risk to us and can no longer be trusted. Containment is not enough. We have managed to seal him off in the Cortex network, but he has already prevented our physical access to the the site and now he has time to think. I know him, I know him like I know myself and he's already a step ahead of us, he's planning something. It is imperative we get to him before he is able to execute whatever it is he plans to do next.

We will gain access soon though and when we do I need to know your team is up to the task at hand. I want Wagner taken out of the picture and I want the databases preserved. The Cortex must remain usable because we don't have the ability to transfer the databases. As you know, we have no technology that is compatible with the Second Age bio-based data systems, so the current storage arrays in there must be kept viable. That's imperative. At least until your team has a break-through and I'm sure that will happen very soon."