24
London, United Kingdom
The USB drive crashes to the floor. The dull impact testifies to the abnormal speed of its fall.
The Doctor presses his heel onto the plastic casing. It immediately explodes into dozens of fragments, revealing the electronic components which he then stomps on again with vehemence until its complete destruction.
You won't get me, I'm smarter than you. You thought I hadn't noticed you, huh? With your little red blinking. RED! Ha! Ha! While all my drives have a blue LED!
The Doctor's behavior is no longer rational. His unkempt hair and sparse beard testify to his questionable hygiene in recent days. The same goes for his crumpled and malodorous clothes, unchanged since paranoia enveloped him. His dry lips begin to crack, indicating the onset of worrying dehydration.
His eyes are wild, his tongue white and coated. It vainly tries to moisten his chapped lips by sticking back and forth over their surface. His fingers seem to move from their own accord, bending and unfolding themselves like a pianist decomposing a sonata in the air.
He talks to himself, incoherently, reinforcing the reflections he holds in his head, then falls silent for a few minutes, only to resume, alternating between thought and speech at the whim of his ramblings.
His eyes constantly shift to the huge control screen displaying several data pages about the state of his installation, his network, incoming communications, and other inputs understood by him alone. Sometimes, he spots a line that seems suspicious, rushes to a keyboard, confirms some data, then moves on to another verification, another imaginary problem since all indicators are in the norm.
The unfortunate storage key, evidently guilty of blinking the wrong color, lies on the floor in a thousand pieces. Doc stops for a moment, dumbfounded. Then he suddenly checks all his devices, double-checking every drive in use, validating that they all indeed emit a blue LED light.
But what about the others? Doc thinks. The ones hiding, waiting to be reconnected to divulge all your secrets...
He begins to search frantically all his drawers and gathers all the memory sticks he finds. Finally, he starts plugging them one by one into one of his test machines.
Blue ... blue ... blue ... blue...
A little jingle emanating from his main workstation snaps him out of his obsession.
"Jay?" Doc articulates, setting down the drive he still holds.
His eyes dart around, betraying the internal struggle in his diseased brain.
It's Jay, my very own friend...
He looks at the control screen, which soon confirms an incoming email in Jeremy Baltac's dedicated mailbox.
No, no, no... They must have gotten to him. It's a trap...
Doc's hand moves towards his mouse.
But it's Jay... Our protocol...
He opens his browser and starts to log in to the anonymous box used to receive alerts from Jeremy.
No! No! Wait! If you read this email, they could trace your connection...
Doc violently shakes his head.
"No, no..."
Do you really think you're protected? Sure? No possibility they could track you? Even a tiny one? You know what they're capable of, right? They found the identity of all RoTP members, damn it!
"Yes... But I found them too. A long time ago, even..."
Doc points the cursor at the confirmation button on the login window.
And you had your reasons... To ensure your protection, to know who you were working with... They, on the other hand, searched for them to kill ... do you remember how they all died?
"Brain..." starts Doc in a trembling voice.
Brain, yes, the brain, bingo! Strokes! Says a lot, doesn't it? THEY can manipulate the brain! THEY know Jay's identity... Think... Jay would never have betrayed you, but THEY could have extracted the information from his brain, all your protocols, all your securities...
The mouse pointer moves to the close icon, and Doc terminates the connection by closing his browser session.
The window of his voice communication software automatically opens on the screen, with a characteristic ringtone. In the phone app, a simple incoming number and two buttons to accept or reject the call.
You see... That's not Jay's number, it's an unprotected number... If you answer, it's over.
Not recognizing the regional code from the Wessler residence used by Jay a few days earlier, the Doctor clicks the red button to decline the call.
YOU ARE READING
Unlimited Plan (*)
Mystery / ThrillerWhen Jeremy Baltac-former member of a hacker elite group turned cybersecurity engineer-learns about the disappearance of an old teammate, he has no idea it's the starting point of a real race against time. Members of his former group are being elimi...
