Daemon

corpse for a few moments. Then he spoke loudly. ‘Agent Philips.’
    Philips and Ross stopped talking.
    Sebeck turned to face them. ‘That call I just received. It was Sobol.’
    Ross and Philips exchanged looks. He had their attention now.
    ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
    ‘Because I was
listening
carefully.’
    ‘What did he say?’ Philips motioned to The Major, who came sprinting up. He took the dais steps in a leap. They all converged on Sebeck’s location at the coffin.
    ‘He sounded just like that.’ Sebeck pointed at the corpse. ‘He was wheezing and semi-coherent. He kept telling me that I was going to die. That it was
necessary
that I die.’
    ‘What else did he say? Try to remember it, word-for-word.’
    Sebeck thought on it. ‘He said I needed to “invoke” the Daemon. That I needed to “accept” it. He said I had to speak directly to it in the months before my death. But that either way I was going to die.’
    Philips looked grim.
    Sebeck pondered the situation. ‘You think it’s more mind games?’
    She turned to The Major. ‘Find out if those wiretaps on Detective Sebeck’s phone and computer lines have gone through. If they haven’t, fast-track them.’
    The Major nodded and immediately bolted down the center aisle and out the front doors with a bang.
    Sebeck watched the man leave, then turned to Philips. ‘You think Sobol will call again?’
    ‘Maybe. He’s most likely manipulating you.’
    ‘He definitely wants me to do something.’
    Philips stared. ‘Don’t. In fact, we’ll prevent the press from communicating with you or any members of your family.’
    Ross raised his eyebrows at that. ‘That’s to prevent him from inadvertently triggering a new Daemon event?’
    ‘Precisely. There’s no doubt it’s reading the news. So you’d be advised to stay out of the headlines.’
    ‘You’re quarantining me?’
    ‘Only for a little while. At least until we can reliably monitor Sobol’s communications. You’ll be very useful in that regard, Sergeant.’
    Two suited agents double-timed it up the dais steps. One whispered in Philips’s ear. Her face displayed momentary shock before she regained her composure. She glanced at Sebeck and Ross. ‘I have to go, gentlemen. Sobol is up to something.’ She and the agents scurried down the steps of the dais. Several other darkly suited men converged on her from far-flung corners of the chapel.
    Ross called after her. ‘Do you still need a guide, Agent Philips?’
    She didn’t turn around. ‘I’ll contact you soon.’ She and the other agents banged through the doors and out of the chapel.
    Ross gestured to the door swinging closed in her wake. ‘Doctorate in mathematics from Stanford, and she’s a graduate of the Cryptologic School at Fort Meade. That woman is sharp as hell. I think I’m in love.’
    Sebeck chuckled to himself.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Good luck with that.’ He started for the front doors.

Chapter 21:// Hotel Menon
    For Immediate Worldwide Release:
From:
Matthew Andrew Sobol
Re:
Back Door in Ego AI Engine
    The Ego AI engine used in more than a dozen bestselling game titles was designed with a security flaw that opens a back door in any computer that runs it. Using this back door, I can take full control of a computer, stealing information and observing logons and passwords.
    The Republic of Nauru was the smallest, most remote republic in the world. A spit of coral in the South Pacific, it was barely ten kilometers long and half as wide and had all the topographical complexity of a soccer field. Nauru was basically a phosphate mine that convinced the U.N. it was a country.
    Dominated first by the Germans and after World War II by the Australians, the Nauruans had come to accept the fact that their chief industry was selling off the ground they stood on. With their phosphate deposits nearly exhausted by the turn of the millennium, the interior of the island – what the locals called ‘topside’ – was now a ravaged, strip-mined wasteland carved down to the coral bedrock. Fully 90 percent of Nauru was a lifeless expanse swept by choking, talcumlike dust. The place had been so systematically scoured of life by mining equipment that the Nauruans considered buying a new island and physically relocating their entire country – leaving a forwarding address with the U.N. However, after most of the tiny nation’s wealth evaporated in investment scandals, the Nauruans had to face a grim reality: they were here to