Manipulator (30 page)

“Let it happen,” the modulated voice on the other end of the line said. “We’re sick of playing games now. It’s not been an easy decision. It's time to end this.”

Beep. Beep.

The boss had hung up. They had said what they had needed to say and then cut the line. Simple as that.

Let it happen.

Kate knew what it meant. It meant stopping Nick from interfering with what Ethan had set up. “How’s it looking?” she shouted to him from the kitchen, raising her voice so that he could hear her.

“At the minute… well, I won’t lie, it’s not looking good," he shouted back to her without even turning his gaze away from the monitors. She walked back into the main room, holding two glasses of water which she placed down on the central table.

“What’s happening in there?” Kate asked as she walked over to where Nick was set up, genuinely curious as to what was going on in the digital world.

“I have no idea,” Nick said, still typing away at the keyboard in front of him. “It could be anything and everything by the looks of it.”

“Is there anything you can do?” she asked, probing him for information.

“I think I’ve got an idea,” he replied. “A way to kick the virus out of the system. It’s a bit radical, but it might just work… and save them both in the process.”

It was exactly the kind of answer that Kate was afraid of hearing. Nick sounded confident, like he knew what he was doing and that he could, in fact, save both Owen and Ethan. It meant only one thing for her.

It was time to make a move and stop him.

She stepped back slowly from Nick's base of operations, attempting to put a little bit of distance between the two of them before she pulled a gun out from a hidden holster on the inside of her jacket. Uncomfortably, she held it with both hands, finger on the trigger, and pointed it directly at the back of Nick’s head.

He didn’t have any idea what was coming.

Kate just stood there pointing the gun at him, knowing what she had to do, but at the same time, not wanting to go through with it.

Just as she was about to convince herself to pull the trigger, Nick turned his head slightly to look at her. His eyes went wide as soon as he spotted the gun.

“Whoa! Kate!” he shouted in surprise. He stood up quickly at the sight of the gun and put both of his hands out in front of him, as if this would help him stop a bullet. “What are you doing?!” he screamed out at her.

“Sit down,” she said to him with no emotion in her voice at all. She flicked her weapon down towards the chair which he had just jumped up out of. Reluctantly, he followed her orders, but he never took his eyes off her, or the weapon in her hands. He carefully slumped down into the chair in which he had been sat only seconds before. He wasn’t interested in what was on the screens right now. All of his attention was focused on the gun pointed in his direction.

“Stay right there."

“You’re working with Ethan,” Nick spat at her, figuring it out instantly. “You’re the fourth person.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about Nick,” she said back to him sharply as she slowly began moving forwards. Nick watched intently as she edged towards him, gun tight in her hand.
If she gets close enough, maybe I can disarm her…

“Don’t,” she said, immediately seeing the thoughts of resistance cross his mind. “This isn’t about you Nick.”

“Then what
is
it about?” he said back to her slowly, trying to figure it all out in his head.

“The one thing that it’s always been about. It’s about Owen.”

Chapter Sixty Two

Date: December 13th 2035

Location: PRoGRaM (CORRUPTION DETECTED)

“Move!” Ethan screamed at Owen as the two of them ran away from The White Room's imminent danger and out onto the streets of New York City.
Has PRoGRaM really got no-where better to take us?

The world of PRoGRaM was different. Owen could see it and feel it straight off the bat. The sky was a dark shade of red, almost like blood in colour, giving an eerily tense vibe to the world. There was something not quite right about this place that they had entered. There was something different in the air. Something new.
Something dangerous.
 
But Owen couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Ethan ran forwards quickly. "Get in there!" he shouted as he pointed to a nearby convertible with its roof down parked on the edge of the sidewalk. He jumped into the car and dropped himself down into the drivers seat of the convertible, attempting to start it up as fast as he possibly could.

“Owen!” he called out loudly from the drivers seat. “Get in!”

Trusting this man stood against everything that Owen had been working towards, but right now he was at a disadvantage. Archer had absolutely no idea what was going on.
Is Ethan telling the truth about the virus, or is this some sort of trick?

Owen didn't get a chance to answer his own question. Instead, his thoughts were cut short as an explosion rang out behind him. The door that he and Ethan had just left The White Room through exploded outwards, knocking Owen to the ground from the shockwave of the blast.

Disorientation.

Luckily, he was just the right distance away to save himself from having any serious injury, but wasn't quite far away enough to prevent the piercing noise that was now ringing out in his ears. Everything around him sounded slightly muffled, yet he could hear Ethan's voice shouting to him from nearby as clearly as anything.

"OWEN! GET IN THE CAR!"

He didn't need to be told twice. Considering his circumstances, he had no other choice. Not if he wanted to survive.
There really is something wrong with PRoGRaM.
He realised.
There really is something in here that's trying to kill us.

Against his better judgement, he jumped over the door and landed in the back seat of the convertible. Under normal circumstances, he would never have been able to trust Ethan, but right now he had no other choice.

“DRIVE!” Owen shouted once he was in. Ethan wasted no time and the car lurched forwards as he put his foot down. The convertible shot out from the spot that it was parked in and fired at top speed down the deserted streets of New York City.

“Annie Archer,” Owen said to him as soon as the two of them hit the road, not wanting to waste time anymore. He grabbed a hold of his weapon and pressed its barrel into the back of the drivers seat.
Who knows how long I have left?

“I admire your spirit Owen,” Ethan said, looking into the rear view mirror and into Owen's eyes as he spoke. “But now is really not the time.”

Owen didn’t respond. Instead, he raised his gun and put a bullet into the mirror in which Ethan was looking at him through. Ethan's reflexes kicked in as he panicked at the sound of the gunshot. He ducked, and at the same time accidentally jolted the steering wheel to the right, putting the car into a minor slide. With effort, Ethan regained control of the vehicle, lucky that there was nothing on the empty streets for him to smash the convertible into. He turned his head and shot Owen an angry glare.

“Annie. Archer,” Owen said again, looking right into Ethan's eyes this time. The man was testing his patience and pushing him to his very limits.

“Even if I told you the truth. You wouldn’t believe me,” he answered, turning his gaze back to the road.

“Try me,” Owen replied, his voice seething with held-back anger.

“I tell you what,” Ethan said. “If we get out of this alive. I’ll show you the truth myself.”

As if right on cue, some of the smaller buildings that they had passed only seconds before began to collapse into themselves. Glass shattered outwards as the buildings just seemingly fell apart from the inside. Countless small buildings behind them came down fast and hit the ground hard, shaking the floor slightly beneath them. Ethan gripped the wheel tightly and kept control of their vehicle whilst keeping his full attention on the road, constantly looking out for any sort of danger ahead of them.

Owen turned to see what was happening and what all the noise was about, but he was quickly greeted by a face-full of thick, choking dust that had been thrown out from one of the nearby collapsing buildings as it had hit the ground. Ethan sensed the immediate danger presented by this dust and put his foot down on the accelerator, causing the invisible G-forces to push him further back into his seat. He held his breath in so as not to choke on the dust that he was attempting to outrun.

Owen wasn't faring quite so well. Having taken in a huge lung-full of dust, he was almost choking in the back seat, but with Ethan putting the pedal to the metal, their car easily outran the huge, thick dust clouds and the smaller collapsing buildings, meaning that Owen could finally catch his breath.

He violently coughed up huge chunks of thick dust and sucked in as much fresh air as he possibly could as their convertible escaped the intimidating dust cloud. Both Owen and Ethan were lucky at the moment. They were on the outskirts of the city, and the buildings here were small, only ten to fifteen stories high at most. Who knew what carnage would endure when they made it closer into the centre of the city? The virus would soon adapt. It would soon catch up to them.
 

There was no turning back now.

“They can’t get us out of PRoGRaM from the outside, can they?” Owen asked, afraid that he already knew the answer. He just needed to hear it from somebody else.

“No,” Ethan replied, confirming Owen’s fear. “They can’t pull us out. There’s too much information coursing through our minds at this very moment. I know because I wrote the virus myself. It’s a
real
nasty piece of work. If we die inside PRoGRaM now whilst this virus is active, we die out there in the real world as well.”

Owen heard more buildings collapse nearby. The danger didn't seem so close this time around. It sounded a fair way off, but it was louder than before.
Larger building are collapsing. This city is falling apart.

The virus was slowly catching up to them, and Ethan knew their luck wouldn’t last for long.

“How long does it last for?” Owen asked, trying to find some thread of hope mixed in amongst all the bad news that Ethan was delivering.

“Indefinitely.”

“Then what’s there to stop me killing you right here and now?”

“I want to live Owen,” Ethan answered. “Unless we work together, neither of us are going to get out of this alive. The viral code that's taken over PRoGRaM knows that we don’t belong in here. The world of PRoGRaM will try and kill us by any means necessary."

“Nick can figure it out," Owen said, reassuring himself. He had confidence in his man on the outside. "Nick is the best guy I know with something like this.”
 

“I wouldn’t count on Nick helping you anymore. Not with Kate out there.”

The words that came out of Ethan’s mouth made Owen go cold. Shivers flew up his spine and the hairs on his arms stood on end. “What do you mean?” he asked seriously.

“You think that we did everything on our own? You think that we never had eyes on you the entire time? Kate was never truly a part of your team. She's with us, Owen.”

“Liar!” he growled quietly at Ethan from the backseat.

“Owen,” Ethan replied slowly and calculatingly. “Think about it.”

Someone knew exactly where to find Owen and his team inside PRoGRaM when Marcus was assassinated. Someone gave away the location of the New York PRoGRaM Analytic Base. Someone had attacked the van when they were inside the PRoGRaM Prison System. The more that Owen thought about it, the more that it made sense. Ethan
must
have been responsible for everything bad that had happened to their team. All of it was possible, only because of the information that Kate had provided.

“Kate…” Owen said disappointingly before suddenly and unexpectedly realising something. Out of nowhere, he quickly changed the subject of their conversation.

“You're going die in here too,” he said to Ethan menacingly.

Ethan sighed as the wind blew powerfully through his hair. It had picked up dramatically over the last minute, causing Ethan to have to raise his voice to speak.

“I was never
supposed
to be inside PRoGRaM when this all went down,” he shouted over the sound of the wind. His tone still came across as a little too casual for their situation. It was almost as if Ethan had expected something like this to happen.
Maybe he's just another loose end that needed tying up…

“How the fuck do we get out then?” Owen leaned forwards through the gap in between the drivers seat and the passengers seat so that he could get closer to Ethan. It was difficult to hear him over the sound of the incoming strong winds. “Tell me! There must be a way?! A way that we can beat this virus on the inside?”

“We can’t,” Ethan answered, completely shooting down Owen's hopes for survival and escape. “We can only run. But eventually, this virus? It will find us. And it will kill us."

Chapter Sixty Three

Date: December 13th 2035

Location: Owen’s Apartment, New York

“Put these on,” Kate spat out at Nick as she threw him a pair of stainless steel handcuffs. He eyed her maliciously and then wrapped one of the cold metal cuffs around his wrist, but it was hard to see her face behind the gun that was continuously pointed at him.