seemed muffled, friends were distant, even her own parents didnât seem real anymore. In this surreal world, where nothing remained the same, where she could no longer cope with everyday events, when the fear of breaking down governed most aspects of her life, Susan Garnett had actually survived thanks to an even stronger force burning deep inside her.
Retribution.
The word had echoed in her mind over and over, again and again, bouncing off the outer walls of her consciousness, keeping her focused, keeping her alive, helping her ignore this alienlike world in which she now lived, where nothing, not even the most fundamental of feelings, had survived unscathed. She no longer loved, no longer felt, no longer cared. She had simply kept on to honor her family, to put the one person responsible for their deaths behind bars, to give him a taste of the personal loss that had stripped her of everything she considered vital in life. And now that she had achieved this personal vendetta, angerâthe last human emotion still burning in her heartâhad flamed out, leaving her core empty, dark, alone, with nothing left to live for.
And so Susan Garnett found herself in her apartment, sitting up in bed, the phone off the hook to keep Reid and the rest of the FBI from bothering her. She contemplated her life, her options, the shiny Walther PPK on the nightstand, the magazine in her right hand, a single bullet in her left.
She had left the FBI building at three in the afternoon, when she could no longer keep her eyes open. She had not felt guilty for leaving Troy Reid in their current situation, with the phones ringing every minute and everyone from the President down demanding answers. After all, she had done everything she could to catch the hacker. It was now time to waitâsomething Susan had found quite difficult to do these days, for it meant letting her mind go idle, encouraging dangerous thoughts. A Bureau car had dropped her off in front of her apartment building, and she had immediately gone off to bed, waking up thirty minutes ago, wondering what to do next.
Yesterday she had seriously contemplated pulling the trigger. Tonight she was no longer certain if that was the right thing to do.
Setting down the magazine and the bullet next to the gun, Susan grabbed the remote control and began to channel surf without really looking at anything, her mind revisiting her options. Her eyes landed on the clock display of the VCR over the TV. It flashed 7:59 P.M. , almost twenty-four hours after last nightâs global event.
2
Troy Reid sipped at his coffee while going through the motions of reviewing several field reports before drafting his daily update to his superior, the associate deputy director of investigations of the FBI, who would further condense Reidâs report, along with those generated by the criminal investigative division, the intelligence division, the laboratory division, the training division, and the office of liaison and internal affairs, before submitting his update to the deputy director. At that level the deputy director would also take inputs from the associate deputy directors of administration, and send a âbig pictureâ report to the director, who would in turn brief the President.
He glanced at the computer screen on the corner of his desk, quickly reviewing the two paragraphs he had managed to write so far. Unfortunately there wasnât much to report at this time. Almost twenty-four hours after the bizarre event the FBI still didnât have one clue. And the Bureau wasnât alone. Susanâs E-mail to the entire hacker community owned by the FBI had returned nothing beyond what she already knew. Either the hackers were holding back, or like the FBI, no one had any idea who had triggered the event last night. The two-hour-old CIA report on his lap indicated that the Agency also had nothing, and strongly suspected that the intelligence services of several friendly nations
Retribution.
The word had echoed in her mind over and over, again and again, bouncing off the outer walls of her consciousness, keeping her focused, keeping her alive, helping her ignore this alienlike world in which she now lived, where nothing, not even the most fundamental of feelings, had survived unscathed. She no longer loved, no longer felt, no longer cared. She had simply kept on to honor her family, to put the one person responsible for their deaths behind bars, to give him a taste of the personal loss that had stripped her of everything she considered vital in life. And now that she had achieved this personal vendetta, angerâthe last human emotion still burning in her heartâhad flamed out, leaving her core empty, dark, alone, with nothing left to live for.
And so Susan Garnett found herself in her apartment, sitting up in bed, the phone off the hook to keep Reid and the rest of the FBI from bothering her. She contemplated her life, her options, the shiny Walther PPK on the nightstand, the magazine in her right hand, a single bullet in her left.
She had left the FBI building at three in the afternoon, when she could no longer keep her eyes open. She had not felt guilty for leaving Troy Reid in their current situation, with the phones ringing every minute and everyone from the President down demanding answers. After all, she had done everything she could to catch the hacker. It was now time to waitâsomething Susan had found quite difficult to do these days, for it meant letting her mind go idle, encouraging dangerous thoughts. A Bureau car had dropped her off in front of her apartment building, and she had immediately gone off to bed, waking up thirty minutes ago, wondering what to do next.
Yesterday she had seriously contemplated pulling the trigger. Tonight she was no longer certain if that was the right thing to do.
Setting down the magazine and the bullet next to the gun, Susan grabbed the remote control and began to channel surf without really looking at anything, her mind revisiting her options. Her eyes landed on the clock display of the VCR over the TV. It flashed 7:59 P.M. , almost twenty-four hours after last nightâs global event.
2
Troy Reid sipped at his coffee while going through the motions of reviewing several field reports before drafting his daily update to his superior, the associate deputy director of investigations of the FBI, who would further condense Reidâs report, along with those generated by the criminal investigative division, the intelligence division, the laboratory division, the training division, and the office of liaison and internal affairs, before submitting his update to the deputy director. At that level the deputy director would also take inputs from the associate deputy directors of administration, and send a âbig pictureâ report to the director, who would in turn brief the President.
He glanced at the computer screen on the corner of his desk, quickly reviewing the two paragraphs he had managed to write so far. Unfortunately there wasnât much to report at this time. Almost twenty-four hours after the bizarre event the FBI still didnât have one clue. And the Bureau wasnât alone. Susanâs E-mail to the entire hacker community owned by the FBI had returned nothing beyond what she already knew. Either the hackers were holding back, or like the FBI, no one had any idea who had triggered the event last night. The two-hour-old CIA report on his lap indicated that the Agency also had nothing, and strongly suspected that the intelligence services of several friendly nations
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