The Viral Chase

Chapter 21: The Software

Chapter 21

The Software.

"I am a National threat..." The words leave my mouth in a whisper that is barely audible to my own ears. "What!" Kevin exclaims in a high pitched voice that is in contrast to my whispering tone. My eyes are fixed at a spot somewhere near his shoes, unable to face the person infront of me. "What in the God's name made you think that!", blurts a staggering Kevin but my mind seems to pay no heed to his words. The unexpected realisation of my actions has proved me nothing but guilty. My inner voice screams back at me with the word, 'criminal'. No, I am not a criminal. I defend myself in my inner conflict between me and my conscience. But one statement that echoes back, freezes my soul. 'One who helps a criminal is a criminal.'

"No! I am not a criminal." I yell, covering my ears in an attempt to stop the words of my inner voice from reaching me without any success. Because all I can hear now, is that one word. I am sinking lower in my chair, as the responsibility of my doings weighs me down. I didn't notice until now that I had tears flowing freely from my eyes. With this comes another voice that has been neglected due to the screaming in my head. "Alina, what's wrong?" And his face comes into focus as he shifts nearer to me, kneeling in front of my chair. "Hey, no one said you are a criminal. Calm down. Are you hearing me?" His voice alarmed as his eyes scan my tear stained face. "Look, if you were one, the agency people last night wouldn't ask you to step away so politely. Trust me. I know how they treat suspicious people." I nod still not believing him. "And I know you are innocent and I trust you. I was also involved. Remember?" He makes a funny face distracting me from all the mess I am in. Though his efforts at humour are not convincing currently, they don't go unnoticed by my eyes. His wide eyes combined with his goofy grin that just appears on his face, gets me cracking up too but I keep it to a small smile.

"Seriously, what made you think that you are a threat?" I just shake my head, looking away. "I mean look at yourself, you are as deadly as a butterfly can be." Kevin and his attempts at humor. "What if the butterfly is turned to a hybrid, making it deadly?" I don't know what I am talking about but I sure seem to have landed up in the kindergarten age. Do they ask such questions, though? I think I might have hit my head somewhere, leading to this concussion like situation of my brain. My answer sure took him by surprise as I can see his face, horrostruck and panicky. "Do me a favor, stop thinking for once, before you lose your brain and make me lose mine too." He speaks softly, still taken aback by my unexpected and strange answer.

My mind was blank, the tears were gone and I sat unmoving with no awareness about my surroundings. If it weren't for Kevin, I don't think I would have even felt my existence. Its like being dead, following the routine, unknowingly, like I am programmed to do so without any questions. My thoughts only scare me and any solution I try to find to help him, comes out worse than the previous one.

"Hey, come here. Have a look at this." He beckons me to his table, excitedly. I leave my chair moving to his side. "Look at this." He points at the screen and I follow his finger finding a list of files. "What are these?" "You wanted to know about an I6 file. So here's a list." I scan through the list finding the extension of each file mentioned besides it and all the files are of the same one, .i6 format. "Each file here contains a confidential information of a past National operation. But you can't view, read or copy them." Kevin explains as I look through the list. "Even if you copy, you can't open it anywhere else except the agency." He adds, straightening himself to appear bold. "And why is that?" I ask in a hoarse voice. "This software, called I6 derived from the name MI6, was developed by a team in the headquarters. I was one small member of that team. Ben Harrison, a national security employee with great brains made his assistant the leader of this team. We developed it under his supervision." Ben Harrison, this name clicked something inside me. I know I have heard it before but couldn't point it out. "So what does your so called software do?" I inquire, still lost in my thoughts to point this man out. "Any file created in this software is its own property. Only it can open or manipulate the file and so we can keep our confidential files locked up. The best part is this software is not on any client or server machine except one that is kept under heavy security in a remote area. No one knows where it is."

Things are getting pretty complicated. What will happen if these files are even copied? They can't read it unless they acquire the so-called software. "What will they actually acquire by copying the i6 files when they don't have the software?" I voice my question for Kevin to answer. "That is what I thought about for hours and I can come to only one conclusion. The traitor in the headquarters is trying to locate that computer to extract the software. I guess, one of the people who knows the exact location of it is, Ben Harrison himself." A jolt of electricity rushes through me as I am reminded about this person. Harry mentioned him as his previous assignment. "Ben Harrison was Edward's previous assignment, before he got re-assigned." I blurt out in excitement to provide Kevin with everything I have to help. That's the only way I can repay. "Edward told me it was a secret mission and was not permitted to disclose any information." "He told me, it was Ben Harrison. Edward knows too much and that's the reason the traitor in the agency is focussing on him, I suppose." "But now, I am their new target." These words fills my heart with concern for both the agents helping me. One, standing in front of me, a loyal partner, and the other captured by his own people and I don't know what is he going through.

Days and days of living here with nothing but mindless wondering about the details I and Kevin have managed to work out. He keeps himself busy trying to design a firewall for the I6 software to block the Mark virus. A virus that is designed to corrupt or destroy files and data, erasing track records and leaving the whole system, a whole intelligence service, helpless. And all I do is stare at the wall and wonder. Wonder about how I can be of help or how will Harry escape or will he even come back and so many other queries, lying scattered in my mind like a desk with papers.

"You know, we use encryption to hide the data and obtain a cipher text that is not readable." Kevin explains as I stare at him blankly, one afternoon. "So?" "What if we make use of an irreversible encryption technique to store the information? They will never be able to find the content." "Yeah and neither will you or anyone for that matter. Problem solved." I mumble sarcastically. He must know, these are the basics. The problem of using an irreversible encryption method is that we cannot obtain back the contents of the encoded file. Silly Kevin. Lost his brain after thinking way too much.

With all these problems around, one more is adding itself to the ever-increasing count. It is evident by the way Kevin looks at me that my wakeful hours are way more than my sleep filled ones, makes him suspicious. He calls me a sleep-deprived soul. No doubt, he finds this a concerning issue but keeps it to himself. I am thankful that he has yet not complained about my screaming nights. Either he is hesitant to ask about it or he is unaware yet. Whatever may be the case, it seems favourable to me.

It has been a week since we crashed down in this cave and a whole month and a week since I ditched my university, my work and my home. After everything I have found or came across, seems all useless now. It doesn't seem that Harry is going to turn up and if he does, it won't be too soon. While Kevin is all dedicated to design this firewall, I doubt our chances to actually set it up before being caught. So it is my chance to step in, take the reins and get my plan, that I have been working on since days, into action.

Strong or not, intelligent or not, smart or not but I am not a coward. Making mistake is common but working towards correcting them and not repeating them is what matters. The cost of my mistake is large, so the expenses to cover for it will be immense too. And I can't sit back and watch people pay up for my mistakes, Kevin is doing his bit and I will make sure to do my bit.

*****

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Regards,

A.R.