Torchwood: Exodus Code

upright again in a matter of seconds. The force of the roll sent Vlad and his chair flying into the map wall and Eva and her chair crashing against the open door. Vlad’s computer alarm went off at the same time. He scrambled from his upturned chair to check on it.
    Cash came across the passageway from the mess, sticking his head into the room. ‘Everyone OK in here?’
    Vlad stared wide-eyed at his beeping computer. ‘Not really. I think you’d better take a look at this.’
    Helping Eva up off the floor first, Cash joined Vlad at his computer, anchoring one foot against the desk leg and the other against the cusp of the steel wall. The ship’s rocking was getting worse. Vlad’s computer alarm continued to wail.
    ‘Can you turn that bloody noise off?’ said Cash.
    Vlad stopped the alarm, watching in shock as a mass of code rolled across his screen.
    ‘What am I looking at?’ asked Cash.
    Vlad made a few fast keystrokes, glanced at Eva and then looked up at Cash. ‘I think we’re under attack.’
    ‘What do you mean “under attack”?’ asked Cash. ‘We’re miles from anything, in the middle of the North Sea.’
    ‘We’re being cyber-bombed,’ said Vlad.
    ‘We can’t be,’ said Eva, righting her chair, and wheeling it next to Vlad, fear completely overriding her desire. The
Ice Maiden
dipped into another massive wave. Water thrashed against the room’s two portals, the ship tipping violently on its side again. This time Eva and Vlad crashed against the wall on top of each other.
    ‘But it’s impossible,’ Eva said, shoving Vlad out of her way and struggling back to her computer. Cash had managed to remain standing, his legs bracing him in place. ‘Vlad created an impenetrable system. No way someone’s hacking us.’
    ‘I thought so too,’ said Vlad, back at his terminal, his fingers flying across the keyboard, ‘but someone’s definitely in our system. I know my own code and this isn’t mine.’ He leaned closer. ‘It’s elegant, but it’s not mine.’
    ‘Nothing’s a hundred per cent secure,’ said Cash, not sure what he was staring at, but trusting Vlad enough to believe his assessment. ‘No one in our line of work would expect it ever to be that way.’
    For a moment, Eva wanted to ask if someone would please tell her exactly what was their line of work, what they were really looking for in the deepest parts of the world’s oceans, but she didn’t. Instead, she sat at her desk and started keying almost as fast as Vlad, working her way into the core of the system, trying to catch their hacker before he or she pulled out.
    ‘I’ve faith in the two of you,’ said Cash, turning to leave as the boat dipped and rolled once again. This time they heard a thunderous crash from above as something on the main deck broke loose of its moorings.
    ‘Finn,’ yelled Cash. ‘What the hell was that?’
    A voice from the passageway screamed back. ‘I’m on it, boss!’
    Dana burst in. ‘What’s going on?’
    Hollis came in behind her – the tight space was suddenly packed with bodies.
    ‘Partaay in here?’ asked Hollis.
    ‘We’ve got a mole crawling around in our system,’ said Cash. Turning back to Vlad, he said, ‘You’ll figure it out. Let me know when you do.’
    Cash and Dana were about to leave. Eva grabbed Cash’s arm.
    ‘You don’t understand, Cash. We can’t have a mole. This boat isn’t like your house or your office. It isn’t cabled to the internet or wired to a server somewhere. We have our own satellite uplink.’ She looked over at Vlad, noting the worry that was furrowing his brow. He was chasing code across his screen, the lines scrolling past his eyes at lightning speed.
    Cash and the others simply looked confused. They should be worried, Eva thought. Very worried.
    ‘Think of this boat as a massive computer server,’ she explained. ‘We’re only connected to the rest of the internet when the satellite is up. And Finn locked it down when the storm began.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Dana, after a beat.
    ‘Shit,’ said Cash.
    ‘Well, I must be dumber than a plate of snails,’ said Hollis, ‘cause I still don’t get it.’
    ‘If we’re not connected to the internet,’ said Sam, who’d been listening from the passageway, ‘and we haven’t been since this storm began, then how can an outsider be active inside our system right now?’
    ‘Well,’ said Hollis, ‘maybe he snuck in before the storm.’
    ‘Maybe,’ said Vlad. ‘But I’m getting