“That’s a great idea,” Sandy said.
Professor Weston continued, but Sandy didn't quite catch what he said. The Professor, or maybe Nicolas Cage, had just solved a problem for them.
Back in the van, Sandy explained it to Jacob.
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before,” she said. “So, you can’t go anywhere near the Your Better Life building, but we need you to get inside to pull this off, right?”
“Yes. But the security system will recognize me as soon as it catches my image.”
“Do you remember what I’ve been doing at the club with the Democratic candidates?”
“In your video mix?”
“Yes. I’ve been deep faking them dancing with customers in place of the person they are actually dancing with. What if I did that to you when you go into the building? What if I hack into the security system and replace you with a deep fake of, I don’t know, Nicolas Cage. It could be anybody, but what the professor just said about Cage and the deep fakes gave me the idea, so that image is stuck in my mind.”
“That's brilliant,” Jacob said.
“There’s still the issue of hacking into their security system, but that should be no problem. Right?”
Chapter 16
Things were coming together. Sandy’s idea for the deep fake was perfect, Xia was in on the job, Two-Step was working on modifying the flippers, and the SRS was willing to work with them. They still didn’t have a clear plan, but Jacob had the feeling a plan would come. The pieces were there, waiting to be picked up and put in place.
He and Sandy sat on top of Miller Hill, looking down at the outdoor theater. As promised, they went to the museum after delivering the media to Professor Weston, and despite Sandy’s explanations, Jacob claimed he still didn’t understand abstract art. That wasn't entirely true, but he knew he could get a rise out of her if he acted as if it made no sense. It was fun, and sitting on the lawn next to Sandy made the day just about perfect.
“Did I ever tell you what my friends and I used to do here?” Sandy asked, gesturing toward the stage.
“I don’t think so.”
“We would come down here at night sometimes and get up on stage. We would pretend we were performers, acting out our own stupid made up plays. It was so dumb, but it was fun though. A lot of things are like that during high school, dumb but fun.”
Jacob laughed. “I know. Gomez and I used to do some pretty dumb things for fun when we were in high school too. God, his mother would get so pissed at us sometimes.”
“I’m sure she would be pretty pissed if she knew what you were up to now,” Sandy said.
“I don’t even want to think about it.”
“You think it's going to work?”
Jacob watched a family come up the hill, the mother carrying a blanket, the father dragging an ice chest, and a small boy running ahead, then waiting and looking back before he ran ahead again.
“I guess I wouldn't be doing it if I didn’t think it would work.”
Sandy studied him. She had a look in her eyes he hadn’t seen in a while. “Yeah, that sounds about right,” she said.
They watched the family spread out their picnic.
“Did you and your friends ever play What’s Their Story?” Jacob asked.
“Who didn’t,” Sandy said. “I’ll go first. They just came from the zoo. It was the little boy’s first time there, and he loved it.”
“No, they went to the zoo earlier. Then, the dad wanted to go to the Natural History Museum. The boy was bored at first, but fell in love with the dinosaur bones.”
“Until his parents explained that the bones used to be inside real dinosaurs.”
“That freaked him because…”
The mother pushed herself off the blanket, a strange look on her face. She started turning in circles. The father got up, trying to place his hand on her shoulder as she spun.
“What’s that about?” Sandy asked.
Jacob stood.
The mother went rigid.
Jacob was taking his code deck out of his pocket and running before the woman hit the ground and started convulsing. When he got to her, the father knelt beside her, a shocked look on his face. The little boy stood off to the side, crying.
“Help me with her arm,” Jacob said.
The man looked at him.
“Hold her arm still,” Jacob said.
Sandy stepped next to the woman and held her arm still, exposing her QR code tattoo. Jacob scanned it, linking his chip to hers.
He was greeted with a white noise very much like the overload in The Galleria a few days before. It wasn’t exactly the same, but there was a familiar quality to the sound, chaotic and random. But the pitch was higher. He tried to clear his mind and find a pattern to the noise, find a rhythm. It didn’t work. The noise got louder, echoing in a deafening buzz. There had to be a pattern. There had to be a rhythm. The buzz surrounded him, taking on a physicality, pressing in on him. Jacob was out of practice with direct links, three years out of practice, and he tried to get his bearings. Saving that last overload had been as much luck as skill, but it at least it helped him get a feel for linking again. This was slightly different. He could tell they were related somehow, like being able to tell that the same musician performed two different songs, but he couldn’t place the similarities, and he didn’t have time to think about that. He needed to focus on helping the woman. How did you do it the last time? Where is the rhythm? It’s got to be here. He tried to let the noise envelop his senses, wash over and through him.
And there it was, a counterpoint to the noise, so faint he almost lost it again. He reached for it, grabbed it with his mind,
