Reboot Read online

  Other books in the series:

  The Ghost Network: Activate

  Published by arrangement with Ferly.

  The Ghost Network: Reboot copyright © 2019 by I. I. Davidson. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews.

  Andrews McMeel Publishing

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  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4494-9731-6

  Hardback ISBN: 978-1-5248-5237-5

  Epub ISBN: 978-1-5248-5850-6

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019932580

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  It wasn’t what he’d expected.

  The heat and the desert dust were bad enough, but Zhou Zhou had been looking forward to the air-conditioned splendor of a state-of-the-art complex. When his father had told Zhou about the Scarab’s Temple, his voice was filled with excitement.

  The facilities are out of this world, Zhou! Laine’s centers are famous for it. Every technological wonder you can imagine—and then some! You’ll have the opportunity to learn and study in a superluxurious environment but be careful not to let it distract you! All of your life I have dreamed about the day that you will graduate from this school. Work hard, my son. Here you will fulfill all your dreams!

  All my dreams? wondered Zhou. Or all of his father’s?

  It didn’t matter, though. ’Cause if this school turned out to be all that he’d been told it was, then the perks his father had described were unimportant. Zhou gave such a slight shrug that Marguerite Lagarde didn’t even notice.

  “And along this passageway you’ll find the dining hall,” she was saying in her businesslike tone. The Frenchwoman had not grown any more relaxed or friendly since Zhou had stepped out of the jeep and dusted the sand from his clothes. Even her welcome smile had been as tight and formal as the braided bun of her pulled-back hair; Zhou thought she seemed nervous.

  “Meals are served at set hours,” she went on. “You’ll find the schedule in your room. Speaking of which, I will show it to you now.”

  Turning on her heels, Marguerite strode down another dingy corridor. The click of her heels was muted by the film of gritty dust that seemed to cover everything. Zhou followed, his expressionless eyes scanning the chipped plaster walls. A scurrying shadow caught his attention, darting from a crack between the floor and the wall.

  “Your room is right he—eeeeh!” Yelping, Marguerite jumped away from the scorpion, her composure shattered.

  Zhou stared down at the tiny creature. It froze for an instant, its tail curling up defensively, before it skittered back into another gap in the plaster. The only sound came from Marguerite’s rapid breathing as she fidgeted with her collar and tried to regain her dignity. Zhou didn’t say a thing.

  “Yes, I—” Marguerite cleared her throat. “I—this is your room. Here.” She jammed a plain Yale key into the lock and shoved the door open.

  Zhou walked ahead of her into the room as she held the door. He stopped and gazed around.

  Well. It seemed clean enough. His luggage had already arrived; it was stacked on the rug in the center of the room. Dust particles danced in the rays of sunlight that pierced the shuttered window and glowed on the plain concrete walls. In the far corner stood an iron-framed bed made up neatly with white sheets and a gray blanket; opposite it, a sink was fixed to the wall. One of the faucets dripped. Someone had gone to the minor trouble of hanging a couple of pictures: black-and-white photographs of desert explorers who grinned at the camera, their long-suffering camels, horses, and manservants immortalized in the out-of-focus middle distance.

  “Of course you’re welcome to put up your own pictures. Your own things,” Marguerite explained as she glanced around. “All the rooms are quite basic. I know the brochure is a little misleading at the moment. We’re quite new, here at the Scarab’s Temple. There have been, uh . . . problems with transferring funds from headquarters. We’ll be bringing the facilities up to par with our sister operations around the world, hopefully very soon. But for now, I’m afraid, you’ll just have to make do.”

  Zhou gave a single nod. It was obvious his silence flustered her. Good.

  “You must have been expecting luxury facilities,” she said, almost defiantly. “You’re probably familiar with our other centers, of course. I expect you’ve googled them all—or sorry, is it Baidu that you use—?”

  “Google,” said Zhou calmly. “I can find my way onto any search engine I like.”

  “Oh. Of course. Well, whichever you use, you’ll have seen them.” Marguerite took a deep breath. She must have been unaccustomed to coldness like his because she suddenly made an effort to be chattier. “The Ma’yaarr Treetop Complex in the Amazon rainforest . . . the Weisshorn Alpine lodge, I know that’s especially beautiful in the snow . . . the Wolf’s Den on an island off Alaska—it’s concealed underground, you know . . .” Marguerite’s voice had grown quite wistful, as if she dreamed of being posted somewhere far from this bleak warehouse of a school in the Sahara desert. Zhou couldn’t blame her.

  “Well.” She shook herself, as if waking from a trance. “I’ll leave you to get settled in. Make yourself comfortable, Zhou, and I’ll see you again at the induction meeting.”

  He had opened his mouth to say a polite farewell, but he closed it again. A tiny red light caught his eye, blinking in the top corner of the ceiling. Tilting his head, Zhou stared up at the camera that watched him, small, black, and sleek. It looked like the most advanced technology in the whole place.

  Finally silenced, perhaps by guilt or embarrassment, Marguerite said nothing as Zhou stared up at it. She was watching him, but Zhou ignored her, focusing all his attention on that gleaming lens. He studied it, taking his time to picture every wire within it, every connection, every circuit board, every sensor.

  “Zhou . . . Zhou? Are you—” Marguerite stopped and gave a small gasp.

  Smoke slowly started to trickle from the lens fitting, at first scant and pale, but quickly billowing into a darkening cloud. Zhou smiled. Yes, he had it now. With a sharp, snapping pop and a burst of white and yellow flame, the camera exploded.

  He heard Marguerite’s piercing scream, then the rapid tap of her heels as she ran out of the room, but he took no notice. Cocking his head to the side, he smiled up at the smoldering wreckage.

  Marguerite returned within a few seconds with a security guard at her side. He had the darkest skin Zhou had ever seen, and he was so tall he had to duck slightly to pass through the doorway.

  “Look—it’s ruined!” Marguerite pointed up at the burned camera. “Can you report it, Salif, and get it replaced? The electricity must have short-circuited again.” Her voice shook slightly. She hesitated and turned to Zhou.

  He turned to meet her gaze at last.

  “Zhou? Did you have anything to do with . . .” She shook her head. “No. Sorry. My imagination’s been on overdrive since I got here.” All the same, her eyes were nervously suspic
ious.

  Zhou made no comment; he just smirked. “I’ll settle in now. Thank you for showing me to my room.”

  Marguerite and Salif exchanged a glance, but they didn’t say another word. At least, not until they’d turned in the heavy silence and left the room. Perhaps they thought they were talking quietly behind his back, but Zhou could hear them perfectly clearly, even after Marguerite softly closed the door.

  “Keep an eye on that one, Salif.” Her whisper might as well have been a shout. “I think he’s dangerous.”

  “Aren’t they all?” The security guard said in a rough-edged, sonorous voice.

  “Maybe.” Marguerite’s footsteps faded down the corridor as her voice grew fainter. “But this one especially, Salif.”

  Reaching out just in front of him, Zhou drew his backpack toward him and unzipped it. With a smile still on his face, he pulled out his PlayStation Portable.

  You have no idea, Marguerite, he thought. No idea at all.

  “Whoa! Tight corner ahead!” Slack’s screech of warning also contained an air of excitement. Beside him, Salome wrenched the wheel, and the Tesla skidded sideways on the ice.

  John Laine, leaning forward in the back seat, couldn’t help feeling that Slack was enjoying this crazy ride a little too much. He held his breath until the Roadster’s tires found traction on the slick road and shot forward again.

  “Have we lost them?” Akane struggled back upright and turned to peer out of the narrow back window.

  “Not exactly,” said Salome grimly, with a glance in the rearview mirror. “Hang on. I’m going to disable the speed-limiting device.”

  John turned with Akane to watch their pursuers. The Tesla was the faster car, but whoever was driving that Mercedes must have been desperate not to lose them. It hurtled around the corner after them; John could just make out the intent, angry expressions of the driver and his passenger.

  “Are you sure those goons can’t regain control of the programming?” John asked. “Akane, do you feel any hacking attempts?”

  “No way.” Akane shook her head just as Salome did. “These aren’t Roy Lykos’s people, after all. They’re just security gorillas. They don’t know whom they’re dealing with.” She grinned.

  “Yeah,” said Salome, her eyes still fixed on the road ahead. “They can’t take control back from me. It’s this ice that’ll destroy us, if you don’t stop distracting me.”

  John rolled his eyes at Akane. “I told you all: taking this job was a bad idea.”

  “So did I,” chimed in Salome from the front.

  “Bad idea or not, we had to do it!” Akane looked indignant. “Carl di Lucci has been drilling in the North Canadian tar fields; you know that! Those fields are protected. Lucci Corp has no right to explore there!”

  “Yeah, but who gave us this mission?” John was entirely on Akane’s side where the tar fields were concerned, but he still felt uneasy. The Ghost Network’s orders had come from a contact who had refused to reveal his name. If he hadn’t used their own programming to infiltrate their heads as well as their phones, the four of them would never have trusted him enough to agree. And, even then, it had been a close decision. If Salome hadn’t reluctantly changed her vote at the very end of the raucous argument, the four of them wouldn’t now be hurtling down the frozen highway out of Anchorage with a stolen briefcase full of stolen documents locked in the trunk of their stolen car. John shook his head and sighed.

  “Who cares whom the orders came from?” yelled Slack over his shoulder. “And to be honest, who cares about the oil company? We do this and we get more information! About our pasts and our future! Mystery Man promised us that.”

  “And, come on, John.” Akane grabbed his arm in excitement. “This is fun.”

  He grinned. “I’ve got to admit I was getting kinda bored in California.”

  “John,” scolded Slack, mock horrified, “nobody can be bored in California! And Salome’s godmother is lovely.”

  “To be fair,” pointed out Salome with a swift glance in the mirror, “Aunt Marjani is lovely, but let’s face it: I could think of more exciting spots to spend a month than Sausalito.”

  “At least Marjani didn’t ask any awkward questions about why we weren’t at school.” Slack yanked his hair free of John’s white-knuckled fingers. “And John’s mom thinks we’re still at the Wolf’s Den.”

  “Hah! I’m just glad Tina doesn’t understand tech,” said John, slumping back.

  Tina Laine had been completely convinced by their live-action animation of Roy Lykos, the creation that had Skyped her when the four of them had reached Sausalito. Calling John’s cell phone afterward, she’d even exclaimed that Roy seemed like such a nice guy.

  If only Mom knew, thought John grimly. But I guess it’s better that she doesn’t.

  “You think it was your dad who gave us this mission?” Slack leaned over the seat again. “He did say he’d contact us when we were safely in Anchorage.”

  “Maybe.” John shrugged. He hadn’t actually dared to hope. He’d spent so long accepting that his father was dead that he still found it hard to believe that Mikael was alive and well—and looking after his young “Ghosts” from afar. That Mikael had actually “created” all of them, rebuilt their brains with advanced AI technology when they were each on the brink of death . . .

  “I know I said don’t distract me,” snapped Salome, her white knuckles grasping the wheel. “But it’d be nice if you all didn’t just chat among yourselves and let me do it on my own!”

  “Sorry!” John touched her shoulder apologetically. At that moment she swerved again with a yelp, letting the Tesla arc into a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree spin on a broad patch of black ice. Akane collided with John again, and Slack’s head bumped hard off Salome’s shoulder; then the car corrected itself again under Salome’s skillful hands.

  “That’s it.” She punched the touchscreen. “I disabled the limiter. Yes!” As she depressed the accelerator, the Tesla shot down a side road and onto another highway—

  “We’re hitting the Glenn Highway!” shouted John as a blurred sign flashed before his eyes.

  Slack clutched the dashboard as he blinked at the speedometer. “At two hundred and twenty miles an hour!” he yelped.

  Salome veered into the left lane and overtook a line of cars; she stayed there, since it wasn’t worth slotting back into the inside lane. They were traveling considerably faster than any other vehicle. She glanced calmly in the rearview.

  “We’re going to lose them,” Salome confirmed, cool and satisfied. “Easily.”

  “Awesome,” said Slack. For all his whooping bravado, there was an edge of distinct terror in his voice. “Though maybe we could just have taken a cab . . .”

  Taking a cab had not been an option, and Slack knew it as well as any of them. It had been a pure stroke of luck, thought John, that they’d spotted Carl di Lucci striding across the parking garage at the Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage. The sleek red Tesla had been too distinctive to miss, and it had taken them just minutes to hack their way into the Roadster and access full control of its computerized systems. It was just a shame that Alaskan state police were faster to respond than they might have thought—they’d been pursued before they’d even made it out onto the airport’s highway exit.

  “Tell you what,” said John with a slow grin. “Even if we end up in jail, this was worth it for the look on di Lucci’s face as we passed him in the parking garage.”

  “We’re not going to end up in jail.” With another glance in the rearview, Salome eased her pressure on the accelerator, and the car slowed to a mere 100 mph. “We lost them miles back.”

  “What about that briefcase?” John asked. “We can’t abandon the car till we can get it out of the trunk.”

  Salome frowned. “Di Lucci’s obviously had the trunk converted into some kind of locked sa
fe. Now’s as good a time as any to try to break in. John, Akane—can you get through from this side?”

  There wasn’t a lot of space in the Roadster’s rear seats, but John and Akane wriggled around and peered together at a small touchscreen panel.

  “Yup,” said Akane. “This is a special feature. It’s got to access the trunk. I don’t know what else it would be for.”

  Blowing the scarlet fringe of hair out of her eyes, she shook herself briefly and closed her eyes. She’s thinking her way into the system, realized John. He’d done it himself before, without even knowing what he was doing, but Akane had a special aptitude for it; maybe it was her experience in meditation or simply the intense focus she’d learned while trying to avoid dying in BASE jumps and dangerous parkour stunts. He watched a profound expression of peace settle on his friend’s face; she didn’t seem affected at all by the speed of the car. Behind that calm mask, John knew, calculations were being made and pathways decoded at a breakneck rate that would put a Tesla Roadster to shame.

  “How’s it going?” Salome called back over her shoulder. “I got the speed fixed quicker than this.”

  “Just give me another few . . . ah!” Akane jerked back as she touched the screen and a concealed panel slid back. “We’ve done it! There’s the briefcase!”

  John lunged eagerly forward into the dark space beyond—

  And it suddenly wasn’t a dark space. As he leaned forward, he brushed Akane’s arm, and she hit the control pad once more. A blast of air rushed through the trunk as the outside lid popped open. At the same moment, Salome, distracted, swerved the car onto the shoulder, then twisted it awkwardly back on course. And just as John’s fingertips brushed its handle, the briefcase jolted and shot out of the trunk.

  They didn’t even hear it hit the highway; the Mack truck they’d just overtaken had already thundered over the briefcase. It vanished between the wheels, and John swore with passion.

  “Stop! We lost it!”

  “I can’t! Look at this traffic!” Salome was slowing, but the truck was too close for sharp braking, even at this speed.