Falling Ark Page 6

  “What do you mean?” I naively asked.

  “She means nothing. She doesn’t know what she is talking about.” Derek said.

  “Oh, so the bank that had their vault inspected by you last year. It was just coincidence that they got robbed a month later!” Ava had a grin on her face now.

  “Well, if they had taken my advice, they would have upgraded their system. They left themselves vulnerable, the vault door wasn’t even locked half the time, they claimed it was too old and kept jamming.” Derek explained.

  “It didn’t jam on the night they were robbed.” Ava pointed out. “And how did the robbers get the biometric data to even enter the bank?”

  “Come on, we all know that system was a joke. The doors were locked with powerful electromagnets that only biometric scanners could open. The thing about electromagnets, they need electricity, you cut the power and they don’t work.” Derek informed me.

  “Didn’t they have some sort of backup generator?” I asked.

  “They did, but it wasn’t configured properly and had never been tested. It was really an amateur setup and they deserved to get robbed.” Derek continued

  “Yes, and then they came to you to put all their problems right after their insurance refused to pay out.” Ava said. “And I am guessing you didn’t give them a discount!”

  “You can hardly talk about morals and ethics. You know she has hacked into every database ever created!” Derek went on the attack.

  “Really? You’re a hacker?” I asked.

  “I don’t like the term hacker, but yes, I suppose so.” Ava admitted.

  “Don’t let her innocent look fool you!” Derek said. “You remember when two satellites smashed into each other and disrupted the internet a few year ago.”

  “That was you?” I asked, jaw open in amazement.

  “Derek doesn’t know what he is talking about.” Ava insisted.

  “Oh yeah, is that the official line GCHQ told you to say?” Derek replied.

  “You worked at GCHQ?” I asked again, jaw opening further now.

  “Well, ‘worked’ is the wrong term to use but yes, I was there.” Ava explained.

  “No, she didn’t work there, she got caught hacking into systems and that was her punishment.” Derek added.

  “Derek! At least let me tell my own story.” Ava moaned, throwing evil eyes at Derek before smiling at me again. “I was young, I used to break into databases and leave little calling cards explaining that their systems were vulnerable. I was naïve and obviously, eventually, got caught so they put me to work at GCHQ tracking foreign diplomats and yes, crashing communication satellites into spy satellites.”

  “I have to admit, I am a bit intimidated by all of you.” I confessed. “You are all so accomplished.”

  “Says the guy who just invented anti-gravity!” Sam chirped in. “So, what’s the plan? Are we going to get Dom’s technology back?”

  Everyone around the table nodded in agreement.

  We had a hitman, a hacker, a thief, a conman and me. It should be easy to break into one of the most secure places in the country and steal the most important invention in mankind’s history.

  Chapter 7

  We all stood, gathered around the holographic table. I know it wasn’t really holograms but it’s what we called it.

  Sam brought up the three-dimensional blueprints of the VisionTech’s research facility. I have no idea where he was able to pull these plans from at short notice, but I was beyond being surprised anymore.

  “Okay.” Sam said with authority. “Dom has informed me that the main servers are located here.” Sam made some hand gestures and the building spun around, zooming in on the basement and highlighting the server room.

  There it was, underneath the large glass atrium, two floors down a little room was outlined in green, the room where the servers quietly hummed away.

  I had walked past this room many times while working there. The main supercomputer was in its own room with a huge glass wall facing the corridor so that everyone could see the fancy technology. I still didn’t have a clue how to get in the room, I had never found a door, just the huge glass wall with hundreds of blinking lights dotted around the metal cabinets.

  “These servers are not connected to the outside world, so no remote hacking, we need to be inside the building. Once in, we retrieve the files and get out as quick as possible. Once we are out, then we can figure out what to do with the files. A smash and grab job. What do you think?” Sam once again made gestures and the map twirled and zoomed out to show the entire building.

  “Getting in shouldn’t be a problem.” The booming voice of Hank said. “I have been informed that right now Lara is trying to triple her security. She is phoning all local agents looking for anyone who can start straight away. We will just pretend we are one of the new security forces and walk straight into the building.”

  I looked at Hank and agreed with this assessment.

  “That could work. There are plenty of outsourced staff already, a few new faces shouldn’t raise suspicions at all. People hardly know each other anyway.” I informed the group.

  “Great!” Hank continued. “I’ll ask around and make sure that we have the correct paperwork, copy some security passes and get some fake names on their databases.” He got up and went to the back of the room to start making phone calls to arrange all of this.

  Sam cleared his voice. “Once we get inside, what’s the plan? How do we get the files out?”

  “Here, use this.” Ava dropped a small USB device onto the table disrupting the graphics projected upon it.

  “I think we are going to need more that a flash drive to get all the files.” I commented.

  Ava shot me a look and then shoved me out of the way as she reached for the device, holding it in front of me.

  “This is a device of my own creation. Plug it into any computer and it will give me a remote connection. This way I can get the files out. I have to be in range though. Here should be a good location.” Ava pointed at a small layby on a side road. “Not too close, not too far, I should get decent transfer speeds”

  Ava gave a smile that said, ‘that told you!’ and put the device back down on the table.

  “Right, so we can get in and get the files out but how do we get out if there is a problem?” Sam asked.

  “Leave that to me.” Derek stepped into the conversation, holding the orb in his hands. “I have been looking at this floating thing. If we get caught moving files off the server, the whole facility will go into lockdown. The perimeter will be monitored, gates will shut, alarms will sound. We will need to get out of there fast. They even have sensors in the ground to stop us tunnelling out, however, they will unlikely be looking up. Aircraft are noisy and don’t make good escape vehicles so you can’t usually fly out secretly, but this orb… How much can it lift?” Derek turned to me and asked.

  “Erm.” I stuttered trying to think of the answer. “It doesn’t really work like that; it doesn’t lift anything. I suppose to answer your question though, unlimited. We would just need to find a way to attach something to it.”

  My head started to think of solutions. “There is an old hot air balloon basket outside, it’s large and could easily fit a couple of people in, even Hank. The orb could take the place of the balloon and we could float away.”

  “This is important, it’s our get-away vehicle. How long do you think we need to make something like that?” Sam asked, turning serious.

  “Not long, I think I have everything around here, there is a large basket outside if Hank could help me move it. I could rig a harness around the orb. Perhaps an hour.” I said.

  “Excellent.” Sam had a mischievous smile on his face as if all the pieces had just fallen into place. “So just one last detail, who actually needs to go? Dom, you need to go, you know where the files are. Hank, I assume you are going to act as security?”

  Hank gave a thumbs up from across the room.

  “Ava you w
ill be in a car nearby. Derek, it’s up to you if you want to be in the thick of it.”

  “I’m going. It’s not very often you get to break into somewhere like this and if something goes wrong, I might need to think quick.” Derek said.

  “Okay then. I’ll stay here and co-ordinate things. Ava, can you get me an uplink to their security system so I can see what’s going on?” Sam asked.

  Ava had been tapping away at her laptop for the past few minutes. She pointed at the monitors on the far wall. They flickered and new video feeds of the entire facilities security cameras came online.

  “Wow! I am good!” Ava grinned at me then turned to Derek. “Did you see what I just did there?”

  Derek pretended to clap politely. Insulting each other was clearly a competition between these two.

  Everybody looked up at the screens and started inspecting the area. We had access to all the cameras. The carpark, main atrium and even inside the elevators.

  My eyes darted to a corridor in the basement. The same corridor where I left an unconscious Frank only a few hours ago. His body was gone, the wall was visibly peppered with bullets and there were two figures walking towards the camera.

  Lara and Frank stopped at the bullet ridden wall and started to have a conversation, pointing at the destruction. She was briefing him on something, he was stood their listening, taking instructions.

  “Can we listen?” I asked Ava, pointing to the video feed.

  “Not on that one, it’s video only.” She informed me.

  Lara looked as confident and strong willed as ever, wearing a tight-fitting blazer and skirt combination and she was likely about to attend an important meeting. She turned and strode towards the camera, determination on her face.

  Frank, his face, after what I had done to it with that pink slime. The horror that I had caused and the screams that would remain in my nightmares. I had melted his face and now as he followed Lara down the corridor, I saw that it was perfect, in fact he looked great. Like he had just spent the day in the spa having facials and a great night’s sleep.

  I knew that place had some amazing technology but what were they capable of?

  The truth was, I didn’t know about most of the things that happened around the building. The staff list was huge, and they had departments for everything. Was walking back in there really a smart idea after I had only just escaped with my life?

  “Right everyone, tonight is going to be tough, everything has to go right, let’s get organised!” Sam said, trying to rally the troops.

  Everyone dispersed to prepare, and Sam turned to me.

  “Dom, go and get some sleep, Hank can rig up the basket, but you need to have your wits about you tonight.”

  “Yes! You look worn out!” Ava said as she bounced back into the conversation. “If you want, I can get Derek to sing you a lullaby!”

  “That won’t be necessary!” I confirmed. “And what do you mean, ‘I look worn out’?”

  Chapter 8

  As the sun set over the distant hills the nerves struck my stomach. I could feel that this was going to be a night that I would always remember for one reason or another.

  I was currently hanging out in a giant basket suspended from my anti-gravity drive about two hundred metres above VisionTech’s research facility. The wind was whipping around, causing the basket to shake but the antigravity drive was unaffected, it remained motionless in the sky.

  It was not unusual to see hot air balloons around here. Many evenings I had seen the spectacle on my way home as local enthusiasts take paying tourists on special adventures. But not tonight, not in March, and certainly never just a basket, missing its hot air balloon.

  I was a dot in the nights sky but if anyone had seen me, they would have been confused about why a man in a wicker basket was being held aloft by a beach ball. They certainly would check the expiry dates on whatever medication they were taking.

  Coming back to this place worried me. The last time I was here I had barely escaped with my life and that was just yesterday.

  I could see Ava from my position up here. Out in the distance I could saw the small red car in the layby, inside was Ava awaiting confirmation that everything was in place. I could also see the blue car next to hers start to move, heading down the road towards the facility. That would be Hank and Derek.

  “Sam, this is Dom checking in, I am in position.” The radio had a crackle to it but Ava had assured us that they were untraceable. The last thing we wanted was to broadcast our plans across the region.

  “Understood Dom. Hang in there, Hank and Derek are on the move. Await my cue.” Sam replied.

  ‘Hang in there.’ What else could I do up here, go for a walk? Even the smallest of movements terrified me. What if the harness broke, or the straps slipped out of their buckles?

  Hank and Derek drove through the entrance check point, flashed their credentials and parked up in the staff carpark. I watched as they walked over to the security hut, make a little small talk with the guard and then exchange something, possibly keys. Then the old security guard wandered off to his car. Staff change, complete.

  The benefit of trying to break into such a large company is that people rarely knew each other and especially when departments were outsourced, like security, people didn’t care when they saw new faces.

  Hanks network of security experts let us know that this was the first shift for this particular security guard. Lara had wanted an increased security presence immediately which meant a lot of new faces.

  This played right into our hands.

  I saw Derek climb into the guard’s office and push the button to let the old guard drive out. Waving him goodbye as he did.

  Hank stood outside, even at this distance I could tell that Hank would struggle to fit inside the little office. He really was huge.

  “Dom, lower your altitude.” Sam voiced over the radio.

  “Understood.” I replied.

  Reaching up I twisted a dial on the side of the beach ball and within moments I slowly descended, back towards Earth.

  The large glass roof of the atrium was approaching fast. I twisted the dial again, trying to slow my pace but I had miss-calculated how fast I was moving. This was going to be a hard impact.

  The glass initially held upon first contact. The basket hit the roof, there was a bang and nothing more, but the landing knocked me off my feet and I couldn’t reach the controls anymore. I didn’t have time to stop it. The metal beach ball just continued descending.

  The straps that held the basket to the orb went slack and the full weight of me and the basket rested on the glass.

  First there was a crack, then multiple and then the entire panel, a four-by-four-metre section of the roof splintered and shattered across the atrium floor.

  The basket fell through but was caught by the harness attached to the orb. Slowly we floated down into the lobby of the building and I performed a better landing near the empty receptionist desk.

  To my relief Ava had been able to disable to alarms and put the CCTV on a loop showing an empty atrium. I was surprised that the noise didn’t attract any attention, but I guess most people had gone home.

  “Quite an entrance you made there.” Derek shouted from across marble floor.

  “Don’t worry everybody, I have it all on camera.” Sam interrupted on the radio. “You should have seen your face!”

  “Do you want a getaway vehicle? I can happily float away if that’s what you want?” I quipped back.

  “Come on Phileas, let’s get you out of there.” Derek said as he reached out his hand to help me out of the oversized basket.

  “That was the easy bit.” Hank said, following behind Derek but quickly making up the distance with his large strides. “Now let’s get to work, we don’t know how much time we have.”

  I reached up, turned the orb off and uncoupled it from its harness. There was no way I was letting it out of my sight!

  Careful not to stand on any of the broken g
lass that lay scattered on the floor we walked over to the stairwell entrance and waited.

  The trick to getting into the basement was simple, don’t get seen.

  “There are still a few people wandering around down there.” Sam informed us over the radio. “Derek, I think it’s time for lights out.”

  Derek stepped up to a seemingly normal looking wall, the marble effect from the floor continued up the three stories to the roof. It was shiny, smooth but unremarkable and in keeping with what you would expect from a place like this.

  Out of his bag he pulled a strange gadget that looked like a robotic spider. It had eight legs that unfolded and hugged the wall. The body of the device had a series of lights that flickered different colours.

  Derek moved it over the wall looking for something. The lights changed colours a few times before, bingo, they all went green.

  Pressing one of the many buttons on the body of the little spider caused the device to stick to the wall. Then, without notice the power to the building went off.

  “I love that little gadget.” Derek started to lecture Hank and me. “If we had turned off the power at the main breakers, the backup supply would have kicked in. Places like this have layers of redundancy and we would then have to find all the generators and batteries and knock them out too. This little device isolates the power lines that are built into the wall, disrupting them in such a way that the main switch doesn’t even know there is a problem.”

  “Clever.” I praised as we slid the door open to the stairwell. Hank handed out night vision glasses and we entered the dark, concrete stairs.

  Everything went black at first but soon the night vision kicked in and everything came back into view, albeit with a green tinge.

  As we moved down the stairs, I noticed that the CCTV cameras emitted an infrared light. They must have been on a different circuit to the ceiling lights.

  “I see you.” Sam’s voice echoed in my ear. “You’re doing fine, just a bit further.”

  I gave the camera a thumbs up.