Chapter 10: What Life?
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It wasn't as if Max didn't have enough to do in his life without chasing around after a misbehaving Josh. He phoned a friend who specialised in programming languages at the Ministry of Defence and sent the image of his programme to him, promising the memory chip as soon as he could. It was less than ten seconds later that the specialist phoned back, demanding to know where he had got it from. Apparently the equations were totally something else; only a few people in the world would have any idea what these equations meant or what they could do. He was desperate to find out if anyone had tried them. Max was on his way back to the health protection agency or he would have driven straight back and picked up the laptop. Max explained that the equations and programs had been tried out already and apparently didn't work. He told of how the person the computer now belonged to had been attacked several times in the last few days and how someone was clearly after the laptop. His friend, Ronald, offered to send his team up straight away to retrieve the laptop. Max, clearly surprised at the importance Ronald placed on the laptop and equations, asked him what they were for and why it was so important. He was told that they were equations for life in the same respect there is gravity, Pi, Planck's constant, the theory of relativity, interior evolution, etc., there is an equation for life.
"Are you saying that someone is trying to create life?” Max asked. “A computer like the terminator?".
"Yes, the search for artificial intelligence has been going on for years. Basic programs have attempted to mimic human interactions with the world and equate life to logic, but equations such as these use logic probability and chaos programming. What could happen with one in a trillion trillion becomes more like reality with one in one thousand with enough computing power." Ronald was almost ranting in his excitement.
"What would happen if someone succeeded? What could we expect?" Max asked.
"I can't say until I see the whole programme. My folks will be there in less than two hours," Ronald explained.
"Let me know what you find. I have had a breakthrough on another investigation and I want to see if it's linked” Max gave a brief description of his case.
"What kind of life?" Ronald asked.
"A parasite, but it may be linked to MRI scans," Max explained.
"I'll be there in two hours with a full team," Ronald replied and the phone went dead.
Max pulled into the old hospital to have a look at the days findings. Predictably, it had been hard to get people to be rescanned at such on short notice but the ones who could had been turning up all day. Reporters were now ferreting around the civilians who were coming and going. Newspapers moaning about crap MRI scans wasn't a major problem he thought, but when deaths were involved it became one. A persistent ringing interrupted his thoughts and he hastily answered his phone. It was a call from Nottinghamshire police informing him that had been an incident at a school. One person had died and another was seriously injured. Their initial enquiry initial had raised suspicions that a victim may have been infected. The police had been asked to inform the HPA of any strange behaviour’s they noticed when called to attacks or deaths. As soon as Max heard that one of the people involved was Josh’s friend he informed them that He was going to take charge of the case. Max scrambled a team and sent them to the hospital to check on the survivor of the attack. He arranged for the victims body to be brought in for an autopsy and planned to interview those who had been present at the scene. He had just got off the phone and was on his way to his car when he got another call. It was Miriam.
"Max, I’m so worried,” she sounded close to tears as she continued, “Josh and Chloe are missing and now there's been a death at the school."
“Don’t worry, I'll find them,” Max tried to reassure her, “I'm actually on my way to the school now. Is it okay if I send a team coming to pick up the laptop though? It may help us to find them"
"Thanks, will you keep me informed and let me know the minute you find them?" Miriam asked, her voice thickening as if she were close to tears.
Max sent in an urgent request for the CCTV footage for Nottingham, starting with the streets surrounding the school. It was as good a starting point as any in his search for the missing teenagers. He instructed his team to interview Miriam and Chloe’s parents to determine what clothes they had been wearing and what they had taken with them. He was confident that finding them would not take long. If they were alive they couldn't escape being found. It's only the dead who are hard to find as they don't move. Max used the opportunity to turn his flashers on. His undercover car boasted a nice set of blue lights with a good old siren. He had added a hidden switch so that his car looked ordinary for everyday use. Traffic moved out of his way as he sped along and in no time at all he was at the school. He was never given James Bond type assignments so the little drive had added a nice bit of excitement to his dull espionage work. He crossed the cordon strung around the entrance, showing his badge to the officer standing guard. He was immediately shown where the body and the injured person had been found. Max only took a quick look. He knew the scene of crime team would document everything exactly before his own team took over and retrieved the body. Three witnesses had been detained and were now in the assembly Hall but the other prom guests had been sent home. Mr Banks and the headmaster had remained in the Hall as well. Banks had been the last member of staff to see Chloe and Josh. The Sergeant who had responded to the emergency call had waited for Max to arrive. He told Max that preliminary findings had shown that two people, Josh and Chloe, were missing. Their friends had been at the Prom with the dead and injured parties respectively. He pointed to the girl and boy waiting in the hall. Both looked in shock. The girl was shivering and the boy was ashen pale.
Max recognised the young man; Callan.
"Hi Callan, do you remember me from Josh’s birthday last year?" Max asked him gently.
"Yeah, you are Josh’s dad’s friend. What are you doing here?" Callan asked.
"I came here to find Josh and Chloe. Josh’s mum phoned me," Max explained.
"My date went mental, accused me of her touching up, I only went to hold her hand," Callan’s voice shook as he relieved the scene.
"Then what happened?" Max asked.
"She went over to Mr Banks, said I was harassing her. I didn't know what to do, I met her on a dating site, the same as Kate did hers," Callan answered.
"Thanks, Callan," replied Max, giving Callan a reassuring pat on his shoulder as he moved away.
Max interviewed Kate, finding a similar story except her date had tried to rape her in the disabled toilet. She broke down into heavy heartbreaking sobs whilst Max was talking to her. He called a WPC to sit with her till she calmed and tasked her with ensuring Kate was offered adequate counselling. Kate wasn't aware her date was dead. He methodically spoke to each of the teachers, asking them in turn who had been where and when. Nobody seemed to have seen Michael or Cara leave the building. He knew the approximate time of Chloe and Josh disappearance as the alarm had been raised swiftly and teachers had gone out to look for them. The search party had stumbled across the dead body and the injured Cara. The only people the teachers couldn't account for were Chloe and Josh. The headmaster explained that they had a zero tolerance policy regarding anyone walking around the school grounds because of high levels of vandalism and the disrespect this showed towards its authority. People were logged in and out on a register, which also acted as a fire register. The headmaster showed him the list. As Max thanked the headmaster for his help and cooperation he was interrupted by Simon, one of his team leaders.
"Sir, there’s something I need to tell you," Simon said.
Max walked Simon out of earshot. Once he could see they would not be overheard he turned his full attention to his colleague.
"We’ve found that both victims have had MRI scans recently,” Simon explained “our team at the hospital are attempting to get the survivor x-rayed right now,".
"Ver
y good,” Max said, impressed by Simons quick work. “Could you contact Marcus and see how he is doing with the CCTV?"
"Yes, right away Sir," Simon replied.
Max checked his phone and saw that it was 8:15pm already. Max and Chloe had been missing for about an hour and a half. He phoned Miriam.
"Hi Miriam, we don't know anything yet,” Max didn’t want to raise Miriam’s hopes only to dash them, “I just need to follow a few leads. Could you text Chloe's and Josh’s phone numbers to me please?"
"Yes of course, Max. Thanks,” Miriam’s voice sounded full of anxiety.
Max paced the room, asking himself what he would have done at their age if he had killed someone accidently. He didn't know if it was Josh or Chloe but they had been attacked twice already.
He knew Ronald was on his way. He didn't normally leave his desk and his colleagues joked that he was scared he might get mucky. Max’s phone rang again and the caller display showed it was Marcus.
Marcus explained the missing teens had been picked up by a taxi close to the school and that they were tracing the driver to find where he had dropped them. Max asked him to trace the phone numbers he would text to him in the next few moments. He was using every tool he had.
Just after 10 o'clock Max started sending staff and witnesses’ home. His team had almost finished there and he had found the taxi had dropped Josh and Chloe in the town where they had gone shopping before getting on a train. His team were trying to find out the runaways destination. Max was quite disturbed by this news. Their actions were too similar to that of a murderer running away from a crime scene and Josh had already lied to them once, over the computer programmes. He was puzzling over how much he should tell Miriam, when his phone rang yet again. It was the team at the hospital and they had a live parasite. The doctors would not release her until she was stable. The attempt to trace Josh and Chloe through their phones had failed. Ronald had phoned Max and broken the news that Josh’s phone was at his home address and Chloe’s could not be traced anywhere. He was still working on why he couldn’t trace it. The only phones that ordinarily couldn't be traced were satellite phones which were illegal. He would need a direct link to the satellite to trace it if this was the case. Usually only spies or terrorists had phones like that. It appeared Max’s best bet was to check the train station. He had their departure time so all he needed was to check ticket sales and the platform cameras and, hopefully, he would find their planned destination. He drove directly to the station while Marcus set to checking the cameras. By the time Max had checked the ticket sales Marcus had phoned back with the news the pair had gone to Derby. He was tracing their steps on Derby cameras but it would take a while. Sifting through hundreds of minutes of CCTV screen footage took a while and to make it worse it had been raining in Derby. The camera lenses would be obscured if they had left the station.
Max immediately phoned Miriam to let her know that they were alive and had absconded to Derby. He spent a good twenty minutes trying to find out where the teenagers might go. He took Chloe's parents details and them similar questions on the phone. He saw that he was going to get nowhere. Chloe's parents couldn't shed any light on where their daughter might be going or why. The hospital team had agreed his team could have Cara in the morning, but security trained staff would remain on guard throughout the night. She had been given a secure room and two guards at a time would take shifts outside her door. Max left instructions for his team to keep working and told them he would catch up with them in the morning. Even secret agents needed to sleep. There was nothing more he could do for now. It was after midnight and he was knackered. His team would stay awake all night and he would phone for reinforcements in the morning.