|
MELODY - LOST FROM HOME [ part 9 ] Well I say I had a plan, I had the basic plan which was to scare the uncle into confessing, I must admit that the thought of Melody’s voice coming from her coffin or grave was appealing to me, he framed me with her ‘death’ why shouldn’t I return the favour with her ghost. Ghost! Why not? Okay only he and I knew she was still alive, but with a buried body there was no way I was going to turn up with the live victim, and from the way things had been done I don’t think I would have survived if I tried to see him alone. I needed a professional psychiatrist to listen to my idea, whether to send me to a mental hospital or to agree with my thinking, probably the former! I asked Elizabeth to join us, she was reluctant until Sue-Li appeared with sleeping tablets in hand, when she saw Melody fast asleep already she smiled, Elizabeth told her to remain by Melody’s bed until she returned, and we left the room. ------ I wasted no time, “Elizabeth,” I started, “I want to convince Victor Jones that he’s being haunted by the ghost of his dead niece.” She looked at me and then said, “But he knows that she isn’t dead!” She insisted so it won’t work. I held up my hand to stop her, “We know that Melody is alive, but what would the uncle think if the angry kidnapper contacts him to say that he’s taken the remainder of the fee from the girl’s body, in lieu of the $5m that I asked for!” Lucy interrupted, “But the ransom note was for $10m not 5.” I smiled, “Yes, he couldn’t even follow my script, had to up the price. Nobody would pay 10 million for the girl; 5 million was an easy sum to afford.” I confided. The Judge looked at Lucy and Elizabeth, she made up her mind, “I’ll leave you to sort out the details, but I expect to see you at City Hall in about an hour’s time.” She said, and left us to talk. Elizabeth said they’d make sure I’d be there – which was nice of her I thought. I looked at Lucy she had interest in her eyes. “What is known about the Joneses, I mean what does Ropeville know about them?” She thought for a moment and then walked to a computer screen; she sat down at the keyboard and started typing away. After a few minutes she sat back and motioned us over to the screen. We looked at the information shown. ‘Jonathan Jones, (deceased). Founder of Jones Enterprises – Father: William Jones, Mother: Mabel Roper (R*); Elder of their three children, Jonathan, Victor and Pauline. Education: (I won’t bother to recount those) except he was home taught, as were all the children.’ I looked at Lucy, and asked, “What does the R stand for at the end of Mabel’s name?” Lucy looked at me then at Elizabeth who nodded. “The R means that she was a resident of Ropeville, she’s one of us.” She sounded as if she was revealing a top secret. “But since she married an ‘outsider’ then she isn’t really part of our solution.” I said casually. Elizabeth shook her head, “No, it’s because she is a resident that it is part of Ropeville’s problem, we look after our own!” I stared at the two of them, both just looked at me. Finally I shook my head. “Okay, so she’s OUR problem now!” I said; we carried on reading. ‘worked as consultant programmer, and then branched out forming his own computer software company, when able to he brought up several unrelated companies, each in developing fields (again I won’t list them here), met his wife Samantha Anderson (R*) while negotiating property in Ropeville County, married out of state. Has one child Me…’ The rest of the screen was blank! I looked at Lucy, “Where’s the rest of the information?” She shook her head, “I don’t know!” she pressed a few buttons, “What the blazes, the file’s deleting! Hold on I’m going to access the backup.” Her hands went to the keyboard, when I stopped her. “That’s no use, I think you’ve got a nasty worm going through your active files, if you access the backup’s then they’ll be gone too!” Lucy just looked at me, I added, “Trust me, you don’t want to bring them up until the worm’s out of the system, get onto the sysop and inform him of the problem, let him sort it out!” So someone was desperate to really kill off Melody. And their reach was long. Elizabeth was thoughtful, “So Melody has two connections to Ropeville! I didn’t know that, this is making it personal.” Lucy just nodded her head and then used her radio to contact the Police office to report the problem, the person, female, at the other end boredly told her that they were aware of the problem and had started to restore the backup files, I shook my head and Lucy repeated what I had already said. "But we used a virus killer on all the files, there's no way we should have problems!" she said. Lucy handed me her microphone. "What we have here is not a virus as such, it's a worm program – it searches for a particular phrase or program and then deletes that part of it." I told them, and then added. "It's something that has been deliberately loaded onto the computer system, you'll need to get a programmer or analysis to check out the main computer and then all the others that attach into it, and they need to start before you touch the backup, just in case they get deleted too." Just then a man's voice came over the radio, "Simpson, stop talking and contact the computer Centre, get them to check the system, if they can do that with our files then our whole community is at risk, contact the sub-contractors and see if they can start to sort out what's happening." I recognised the voice, it was Sheriff Evans. "Yessir." Came the reply and the link went quiet. Elizabeth was white faced, "Could something like that really threaten Ropeville?" she asked I nodded, "Yes, because the worm could just as well send data out of the system onto the internet and place it anywhere." Lucy then realised, "It's looking for Melody, all information about the girl, that's what's being affected." I nodded, "First her school, then the hospital, I would suppose official records will also be affected. I don't know how he's able to do this. . . Hold on, what did the printout say about John Jones?" I tried to rack my brains, "He was here for property, what kind of property?" I asked. Lucy answered, "Well, only the largest software development team outside Silicon Valley." She said. I nodded, "And we're affected by a software worm? I wonder if the two are connected." I said rhetorically. Lucy made up her mind, "We've got to get this sorted out before we can think of helping Melody, I'm sorry but I think you'd better come with me to City Hall!" She said, and she started to usher me out of the room. I quickly said to Elizabeth, "Change Melody's identity on the computer, use a different name, but ensure that the system doesn't know who she is. Mark her down as dead make the worm think she's no longer with us, understand?" Elizabeth shook her head, "No I don't understand, why should I do that?" She asked. "Because when the system finds her, it will report back to her uncle, once he knows where she is he will try to kill her." I explained, "He's got nothing to lose now, and everything to gain!" I quickly left Elizabeth to take care of Melody and followed Lucy down the corridor to the lift. Once inside Lucy pressed for the Ground button and the lift ascended to the floor, she didn't speak as we left the hospital and quickly walked to the City Hall building, I could see there was a lot of movement around the building, several people rushing up the steps to the doorway and going in, looking round I could see amber lights flashing on some houses. "That's an alarm, it's calling all voting members to the Chamber," Lucy explained, "We've never had to use it before. I wish Mavis and her team were here." I looked at her, "That's the name of your SWAT team leader?" I asked; she nodded. "Yep. I mean Evan's good at what he does, but Mavis could surgically remove the problem without drawing breath!" 'Boy' I thought, 'Old Victor doesn't know what he's done.' The image of a disturbed ant hill came to mind. ---- When we arrived the council chamber was in an uproar, questions were being shouted back and forth, with no answers available, we looked at the chaos for some minutes, and then I felt Lucy tug my arm to move deeper into the building and then into a small room, two officers, again female, were standing on either side of the door, they frisked me professionally before I was allowed to enter. The room was empty apart from a television screen, I sat in a chair directly in front of the screen, Lucy stood beside me. "The people you're going to meet are the real movers behind Ropeville; they make the decisions that affect our overall policies." She said, and then added, "Make no mistake, if they think you're trying to manipulate them you will die." She said this without blinking, I realised she was serious about that. The screen came to life it showed a large room, nicely furnished in pastels and looking expensive, although there were 7 comfortable chairs in it only 5 were occupied, the occupants wore masks on their faces The person in the middle, she held a gavel, so I assumed she was the chairman/ (person?). "What have you done?" she said, I spread my hands to show nothing, she carried on, "Ever since our people retrieved you we've been having computer problems, you're the only newcomer we have in the County, so it must have been something you did! This annoyed me, and I think my face showed it, but I spoke up anyway. "Now listen here, You rescued me from the local police, for which I thank you, but all the time I've been here I've been constantly watched, I've had no chance to do anything, I'm not your enemy, the person who's doing this has to be Victor Jones, I don't know how but he's behind it." The faces on the table showed scepticism, a blond haired woman then spoke, "We've spoken to Victor Jones; he doesn't know anything about this! As far as he's concerned we've been unlucky to get a new virus before the checkers could be updated, he's authorised the local company to check into this and report on it." I shook my head, "Of course he knows nothing about it!" I said sarcastically, "It's amazing that it's only appearing when anyone tries to access detail on Melody Jones, or if her name is picked up! He knows about it because he's ordered it to be created, most probably by the same software section that's investigating it! Have you checked in with them?" The women conferred for a moment and then the chairman (chairperson?) spoke to Lucy, “Officer you’ve been with him for a long time, what do you think?” Lucy considered for a moment. “He is a self confessed child abductor, rapist and slaver. He would say anything to wriggle out of prison, but in this case mistress, I think he's telling the truth!" I nearly snorted at the 'in this case' part, but I let it go. The women at the table again conferred and then the chairman looked around, "Okay then, this Victor Jones has attacked a resident of Ropeville, and in so doing has compromised the lifestyle that we hold dear, he's declared war on us, so we're going to fight back." She looked at the women beside her, "No. 1, check on the financial status of Victor Jones, we've heard the statement of Melody and also the recorded testimony of our new employee," She pointed to me at that, "No. 2!" a pale woman looked at her, "We need to check on the current status of Jones Enterprises in Ropeville, how long does the contract last with them, and what is their current standing financially. In other words if we decide to close them down, what backing could they mount against us? "No. 4 you're going to accompany me to the software offices; we're going to find out exactly what type of virus we're dealing with! Lucy - we're going to need some of your people to back us up. In the meantime No.5 you're going to have to inform the town council about the problem and that it's currently in hand - but they're going to have to do without the reference computer until further notice. Also get onto the hospital, we're going to have to protect Melody, just in case the program has notice we've got her here, I'm not sure what to suggest." I interrupted with, "If she's done as I've said then Elizabeth has started on that. I've told her to register Melody as dead! It seems drastic." The chairman gave a tight smile, "If that's the only way then we'll have to do it, how is she by the way?" Lucy answered, "Last time she was fast asleep, but only after she saw Him! It seems she couldn't sleep before he was there!" They all looked at me as if to size me up, then she nodded. "Okay people, we know what to do, lets get it done!" As they started to leave, I said, "And what about me?" There was a hesitation, and then the chairman said, "We've assign you a room at a boarding house, it's next to the school, you'll be reporting to Principle Salinas for your assignment, you did say you used to be a teacher?" I nodded, nothing surprised me nowadays, "Then you should find your next few days interesting, Lucy will show you around. Oh and of course you won’t try to leave the town, with regards to you the police here have orders to detain you should you try to leave the town, and if you won’t stop they will shoot to kill!" And then the screen went dark. "There's a Chinese curse." I said to Lucy, at her puzzled look I continued, "It says 'may you live in interesting times'" at her smile I knew I was right. - The next chapters, of which I’ve written the first and working on the second, will concentrate on ‘Mr. Purple’s’ lessons in the school, without mentioning Melody as such, I hope you enjoy them. |