Mind_Hack.exe Ch. 04

"What's up bro?" Stephanie called.

"We're burnt. I'm using our backups. I'm sorry Adam dragged you and I into this, and I'm sorry I probably made it worse. Lay down in your bed and pretend to sleep and in a minute, I'll merge your signals into one consciousness."

Steph's voice quivered with fear. "...okay. I love you Dan."

"I love you too Steph." Dan hurried back to his computer. With only seven minutes now he'd be cutting it close. He started his self destruct program that he had for just such an occasion. It would completely wipe his drives, and then melt it down from the inside out. Nothing would be recoverable. He got his tablet and threw it in the microwave downstairs. He set the timer for 5 minutes. This would cause a fire no doubt but that might be a good thing. As he headed back upstairs, he heard what sounded like several vehicles pulling up outside. He moved quicker now. He sat back at his computer desk and pulled up the question that pertained to Stephanie's backup.

There on the screen was the question. "Back up complete. Replace original and make primary? Y/N?" Dan hoped he was right about this but knew he didn't have a choice now. He selected yes and a follow up question popped up. "This will permanently delete original. Are you sure? Y/N?" Dan swallowed hard, then chose yes. He waited a few seconds, then got up and went into his sister's bedroom. She was under her covers lying perfectly still. He took her arm and checked for a pulse. He let out a tiny sob when he found nothing there. As he hurriedly made his way back into his office, he heard the sound of the door being broken through downstairs. He locked his office door, buying himself maybe a precious few seconds.

At Adam's house, Paul had gotten dressed and was standing in Adam's room watching Sarah pull up Mind Hack on Adam's computer. Suddenly Paul let out a cry of pain and clutched his head. The merge of Stephanie's two selves was painful, then over quick as it began. She recalled everything here and there and the danger of there was making panic set it. "Dan!" she yelled at Sarah, "You have to get out of there now! I heard cars pull up over at our place!"

Sarah didn't slow as she selected Cindy's body. "He can't hear you through me, remember? I'm sure he's on top of it. Right now we have to get Adam out of Cindy and into another body and then back his consciousness up into that one. It needs to be someone they won't suspect. Now get downstairs so you can get Cindy out of here when she comes to. Tell her I don't feel well and needed to lie down." Paul hesitated, then did as asked. A minute later, Adam was back in his own body on the floor of his room, watching his mother work feverishly on his computer.

Back at Dan's, POM's enforcers had cleared the downstairs and now were coming up the second floor. Dan hoped beyond hope his computer's self destruct program would do its job and that he had hopefully cause a good distraction for them for later, but now it was time for him to get out. He selected his own backup option. The doorknob of his office rattled as someone attempted to gain entry. He selected yes. He heard a separate sound of the door of his sister's room being opened, then a burst of gunfire as they eliminated one of their targets. The last question was before him. His door exploded open as his finger hovered over the key. He pressed it as a volley of bullets made their way towards their mark. Dan had a moment to look down at the huge red stain spreading out around his chest, then his head slumped forward.

Sarah and Adam were quickly looking for nearby options for Adam when Sarah grabbed her head. Her hands then went to her chest as the memory of being shot flooded into her mind. "I'm all here now. Got out just in time. Now we get you to another body, then we hope that we can escape these bodies we're in now. I..." Sarah stopped talking as a message appeared on Adam's monitor.

"ENFORCERS THERE IN 2 HOURS. BACKUP ADAM, THEN STAY LOW. ALL RESTRICTIONS ARE REMOVED AFTER USING BACKUP. I'M SURE I'LL BE SEEING YOU SOON. GOOD LUCK."

Sarah whistled. "Whoever this guy is, he's everywhere. It's almost like he's..."

"What?" Adam asked unnerved.

"It's like he's been monitoring us this whole time, the real us? If so he just saw a lot of kinky shit. And I guess he knows we'll be looking for him to get answers. I just hope he wants the same thing we want."

"Okay, but what did he mean all restrictions are removed after backup?"

Sarah paused, thinking. "Don't know. I guess we'll find out, but it sounds like Steph and I will for sure be able to jump out of these bodies into somebody else. So that's good news. As far as staying low, that shouldn't be too hard, because very soon POM is going to have a huge mess on their hands."

"What mess?" Adam asked.

"The biggest part of my contingency plan was to flood the net with your program. It's a clone of the one we've been using so anyone who pulls it up will have instant access to POM and the ability to hop into someone. I even included a user's manual of sorts. If POM knows we're in other people and they know how to find us, this should give us a big enough distraction to stay one step ahead of them. At least I hope it does."

Adam looked skeptical of this plan. "Isn't that, well, I mean I didn't have the best intentions with it, but, don't you think other people might go even further than we did?"

Sarah grinned at him. "Further than mother fucking? Maybe? But by the time we get our answers and shut down POM, everything should go back to normal and the government will have lost most of its choke hold on our society." They both resumed looking at the red dots on the screen as they carefully selected the next bodies that would become their temporary home.

Chance Kirkwood's mansion was several sectors away. As the current CEO of POM, he could afford to fill it with the finest things money could buy. It also had a state of the art computer that Chance had built himself. Three monitors showed him everything that Adam, Dan and Steph were seeing in real time, even if they weren't in their original bodies. His version of Mind Hack was far beyond what Adam had put together, but it was impressive nonetheless. Chance shook his head at his carelessness of letting Adam have access to... but that was in the past. He was glad it had worked out this way. And he had paid them back by giving them ample warning to save their lives, at least the digital backups of their lives. Everything was almost complete. And even better, Dan's plan to flood the internet with their inferior version of Mind Hack should give him the rest of the time he needed without worrying about any outside interference. They would be visiting him soon. He would be prepared. He would answer their questions and then show them the grand scheme of it all, one that he had been working on for so very long. The thought of having someone there to witness it caused the corners of his mouth to inch upwards, right before his body gave an involuntary shudder.

To be continued...