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Eve drank coffee because she wanted something to do with her hands. Feeney sat at her desk, manning a secondary unit they’d brought in as a control. If something went wrong in the lab, he could crash the system remotely.
Jamie hovered over him, so close they looked like one body with two heads.
“Why can’t we do the whole thing remote?” Eve asked.
“You lose operator instinct,” McNab told her. “You got him right there, at the infected unit. He can make judgment calls in a blink.”
“Besides—ow.” Jamie rubbed his belly where Feeney’s elbow had landed.
“Besides what?” Eve demanded. “Don’t pull this e-solidarity crap with me. McNab?”
“Okay, okay, in simple terms we can’t be sure the shield will filter out the infection during an interface. It could, probably would, spread from one unit to another. We figure that’s how it pumped into the eight units we hauled out of Fitzhugh’s place. Infect one, infect all. Efficient, time-saving, and thorough. So if we try a remote, it could leak into the other unit, potentially through the whole system.”
“We need more data to confirm,” Jamie piped up. “Then we’ll create a shield to handle that area. Priority was shielding the operator while he extracts the data. When you’re dealing with a remote, and a multisystem network, the units have a language. They, like, talk to each other, right? The infected unit’s got a different language, compatible, but different. Like, I dunno, Spanish and Portuguese or something.”
“Okay.” Eve nodded. “I get that. Keep going.”
“Me and McNab, we’re working on what you could call a translation deal. Then we can zap it in, run sims. We’ll shield the whole system. We figure we’ll be able to link to CompuGuard and shield the whole damn city.”
“Getting ahead of yourself, Jamie. One thing at a time.” Feeney glanced up at the wall screen where they could see Roarke attaching the sensors.
“Gonna run your medicals. You copy?”
“Yes.”
“Medicals normal. You’re good to go.”
“Booting.”
Eve never took her attention away from the screen. Roarke had tied his hair back as he often did when he was working. And his shirt was carelessly open. His hands were quick and steady as he slid the disc into its slot.
“Loading the filter. Estimate seventy-two seconds to upload on this unit. Loading Jamie’s code breaker. Forty-five. Running diagnostic from point of last attempt. Multitasking with search and scan for any programs loaded within the last two weeks.”
He was working manually, with those quick and steady hands, relaying his intentions in a voice that was brisk and cool, and beautiful.
“Disc and hard copy of data requested, as accessed. Upload complete. We’re shielded. There now, Jamie. Fine job. Data’s coming up readable. Here now, what’s this? You see the data on monitor, Feeney?”
“Yeah, yeah, wait. Hmmm.”
“What?” Eve shook McNab’s good shoulder. “What are they talking about?”
“Ssh!” Such was his concentration, he didn’t notice her jaw drop at his command as he drove his chair closer to the screen. “That is so total.” Forgetting himself, he started to push himself up. And his dead hand slid off the arm of the chair.
For a moment, he simply froze, and Eve’s throat filled at the look of shocked panic on his face. Then he adjusted the chair smoothly, bringing it to a different position so he was higher and straighter, with a better view of the monitor.
The room was full of jargon again, rapid questions, comments, observations as foreign to her as Greek.
“Somebody speak in English, damn it.”
“It’s bloody brilliant. I shouldn’t have missed this on the first pass.” Roarke reached over to another control, keyed in commands by feel. “Ah, bugger it. She’s trying to fail-safe. Not yet, you bitch, I’m not done with you.”
“Shield’s breaking up,” Feeney warned him.
“Shut down,” Eve ordered. “Shut it down.”
“It’s still at ninety percent. Hold your jets there, Lieutenant.”
Before she could repeat the order, Feeney interrupted. “He’s all right yet, Dallas. Medicals are holding. Son of a bitch’s pulse barely shows a blip. He must run on ice. Roarke, go to shell. Try the—”
